Life Looks Better in Spring
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: Hogwarts in the 1970s was the place to be. Albus Dumbledore gave them so many liberties, perhaps because he knew how the world would treat them when they left those walls... And then they left those walls... RL/OC SB/OC OC/OC OC HEAVY, Some femmeslash
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: ANOTHER MARAUDER ERA FIC WHAT IS SHE THINKING? I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. Please forgive me and just enjoy the damn story, okay? ;) Love you guys. BTW, add me on Pottermore, seriously, I'm PixieAsh14915. HUFFLEPUFF POWER! (Although all my besties are Ravenclaws, so y'all get a shoutout toooo!) This starts in Susanna's POV.**

**-J**

I chewed nervously on my lip, actually peeling away the dead layers of skin with my teeth and rubbing the skin cells between my teeth as I thought. Leah would be awake soon. Then we would pack up the car for her final year at Hogwarts.

I knew that in a lot of ways she was really looking forward to it. Gryffindor was apparently primed to take the Quidditch Cup for the sixth year in a row, third year under the direction of Captain James Potter, and she was one step closer to her dream of going into Healing.

Of course, it was a highly competitive field, like Aurors, taking one or two of the most promising students from each class.

Leah was good, but her class was one of the best ones Hogwarts had ever seen. She was likely to be competing for a spot in the program with James Potter himself.

In all honesty, while Leah was amazing a much of what she did, it wasn't just the multitude of magical geniuses in her own year that frustrated her, and I knew it. Being my sister wasn't fun.

Ever since I was born, literally as I was coming out of the womb, I was doing magic. I actually saved myself from choking on my own chord and then cleaned myself off and the Healers who delivered me were shocked. Apparently nothing like it had been seen in over a hundred years… Albus Dumbledore, in fact.

So it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that I was difficult to have as a younger sister. Leah wasn't a prefect, Lily Evans beat her to it. In any other year she would have been, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I was, though, and my parents were so proud they actually threw me a party, which they hadn't even done when Leah made the Quidditch team, and she's one of the best Beaters I've ever seen. My parents weren't playing favorites. Not consciously. They would have done the same if she'd been a prefect and I'd made a Quidditch team, but it just so happened that she didn't and I had no athletic interest whatsoever beyond spectatorship.

We were less than a year apart, too, so she never really got to appreciate her brief period as an only child. Literally less than a month after our mother had her, I was conceived. She doesn't even remember me not being there.

I was sitting up, starring at the wall across from my bed, wondering if she was still sleeping. One might think I was waiting for Christmas or something, but I could never sleep the night before travelling, especially on the train, and it drove my family absolutely up the wall.

I checked my clock. Half an hour until I was supposed to be awake. Unable to stand it anymore, I climbed out of bed, careful not to make too much noise and purposefully not turning on my light, I tiptoed across the room to my closet, trying to remember the weather report as I searched for something to wear. Sunny? Yes, I thought it was actually supposed to be a nice day in Scotland for a change. I pulled out a light blue sundress and pulled it onto my body.

It looked good, I decided in the dim light of my bedroom. Really good. It was one of my favorite dresses.

But then, this was the first day of Leah's last year. She ought to be the prettiest girl on the platform, and since Lily Evans was going to win that contest no matter what, the least I could do was make sure she was the prettiest Papp girl on the platform. I was not going to be that bridesmaid trying to outshine the bride. Tucking the dress carefully in my trunk for another day, I went through some of my older clothes from back when I absolutely no fashion sense.

Baggy jeans, a threadbare Sex Pistols tee, and I tossed my perfectly brushed hair (for what else was I going to do all night?) into a messy bun and daubed on some foundation, a bit of lip gloss, mascara, eyeliner, and just a hint of gunmetal eye shadow. Then I stepped back from the mirror.

This was the sort of look I would have done back in my O.W.L. years, back before I cared what I looked like, and my mother had always told me I looked absurd. Maybe she was wrong or maybe I had grown into it finally, but I couldn't help cursing when I looked at my reflection and realized that it had done nothing to make me uglier. Hastily, I washed away the makeup and daubed on a bit of foundation, slicked on some lip balm, and didn't even bother with eye makeup, hoping it would make me look washed out.

A little worse, but not worse enough.

"Damn it, Suzy," I hissed at my reflection. "Why can't you be ugly like you used to be? God, even hiding the curves. No," I said firmly. "There's nothing for it. I'll just have to force Leah to let me do her makeup this morning. It's the only way to compensate for my lack of ability to be ugly."

Leah had long said that I didn't even need a wand to do magic if I had even the simplest Muggle makeup kit, and I was always very proud of the fact. Ever since I was twelve (when I first started breaking out and needing foundation) I had been working on the art of makeup and making it look as fun, interesting, and fresh as possible. Professor McGonagall hadn't always been a fan of my artistic expression, and Professor Sprout finally helped me navigate the waters of when was an appropriate time to flex my artistic skills and when I should stick to more traditional uses for makeup.

Apparently using Muggle makeup to create fake injuries isn't appropriate in the middle of the Halloween feast. My housemate, Catrina Landau, had said it was "hilarious" and "brilliant" but nobody with much authority seemed to think so, so I was forced to wash it off and return to the feast when I had done so.

"Suzy?" Leah said, knocking on the door. "I know you're awake. Can I come in? I need help deciding what to wear."

I sighed.

"Yeah, sure, it's unlocked," I said dismissively, crossing my room to find a pair of trainers.

Leah came in carrying a few outfits, eyes still bleary with sleep, blinking down at me.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

"Felt like it."

Leah frowned, suspicious, but she didn't ask any more questions. She probably knew exactly why I was dressed the way I was and had too much pride to thank me but not enough pride to make me change into something more flattering.

"Let's see what you've got, then," I said quickly crossing over to her and pulling the clothes out of her arms. Not bad choices, all. There was one dress in particular that I adored on her, a white number that managed to make her look angelic rather than just washed out. It also fell at a flattering part of her calf. Leah was very pretty, but she had a Beater's figure, and that just wasn't in fashion. Truly, I envied her strength and the way she just didn't seem to care, but I worked hard to be as thin as I could manage without doing anything crazy. It was one of the many reasons I had not followed her advice and tried out for Quidditch. My own legs weren't naturally as lean as I had managed to keep them, and there was no way I was going to let flying drag me off course, as much as I knew my father would have loved to have both of his girls be Quidditch players.

Besides, deep down I didn't want to constantly lose to my sister, and there was no way I would be able to block James Potter. It was bad enough Hufflepuff lost the House Cup every year. Thankfully, my parents understood this quite well. It's not that Hufflepuffs aren't incredibly capable, it's that the Gryffindors lately have been so incredibly capable it puts my poor house to shame.

"Put it on, then," I said, holding out the white dress. "Let me do your hair and makeup today?"

She sighed.

"Do we have to do my hair? It's not like it's a wedding or something."

I sighed.

"Fine, we'll put it up, then. I'll do your makeup how you like it, okay?"

"Sure."

I looked in the mirror when Leah left the room. My mother wouldn't be pleased, but Leah seemed grateful, in her little way, and that was the important thing.

She came back in and brushed her hair as I began to do her makeup, giving her the dewy, fresh look that made her look like fairy princess, or at least, that was what our mother said whenever I did it. It was my favorite look for her and she thanked me, dropping down onto my bed and looking around the room.

"This is the last time we get to do this together," she said sadly.

I nodded.

"Can I ask you a question?" she sighed.

"Absolutely."

"Do you have a crush on Remus?"

There was no point in trying to hide my blush. I knew Leah had seen it from the smirk on her face. Was I that obvious?

"How did you know?" I whispered, trying not to be too embarrassed. After all, Leah knew things about me nobody else did. She was my sister, after all. Her figuring out my deepest secret was no guarantee anyone else had.

"Oh, I didn't," she said casually. "Sirius keeps saying, 'Remus goes on and on about how smart Susanna is, which is Remus-Speak for wanting to shag her brains out, of course.' And I was curious if you returned the sentiment."

My eyes widened, shocked. Had he really said that? Did it really mean that? Did I really want that? I certainly found Remus to be handsome, intriguing, but… but… shagging? I'd only kissed my last boyfriend twice. Granted, I'd been thirteen and it lasted a week, but still. Perhaps this was Sirius Black elaborating on things that weren't quite as intense as he seemed to think they were.

But then, perhaps he was right.

I could feel a bit of the flirtatious beast my last attempted conquest had killed rearing up in me again, and I knew it was going to be an interesting train ride.

Betsy would join me, of course. She'd had a thing for Sirius for as long as anyone could remember, and if she was coming with, That meant Brigitta and Iris would either avoid the Marauders on their own or come along for the ride, reluctant though they would be. Brigitta had her boyfriend, so maybe she would be busy with him, and there was a rumor that Iris had started seeing somebody over the holiday.

I had been trying hard not to be bitter about my friends having someone and me not, but it was a lot easier not to be bitter when I had the prospect of a chase in front of me. I had to remember to thank Sirius if I ever caught my prey.

"I'm hungry," I sighed, falling back on the bed. "When will they announce breakfast already?"

"When it's breakfast time, idiot," Leah replied, rolling her eyes, and swatting me playfully. I swatted back and we laughed.

"Breakfast!" called our father's voice, and we laughed again, racing each other downstairs to the kitchen where our mother was setting out plates of eggs, sausages and toast.

"You look lovely, Leah," she said, and then she turned to me and sighed. "Suzy, is that really what you want to wear your first day back? It's not very flattering."

"At least it matches," Leah teased, winking at me.

"Everything matches jeans," my father said with a laugh, "even I know that."

Everyone laughed. Our father was colorblind and sometimes he came up with some… interesting outfits, if left to his own devices.

"Are you packed?" our mother asked. "You didn't leave anything for this morning again?"

"No," I said honestly, "but that doesn't mean I've remembered everything."

Leah loved to tease me because despite the fact that I spent all night packing and checking and repacking and rechecking, I always managed to forget something, and usually something important. Once we went on a weekend trip to Germany to visit family and I actually forgot to bring any nightclothes, so I had to borrow some of hers. It wasn't a catastrophe, but there was always something. Our poor owl spent half its trips bringing me things I'd left at home by accident.

"Is Mattia Head Girl?" our mother asked, pouring herself some tea. "You didn't mention if she said in her letter."

"Probably not," Leah said nonchalantly. "She didn't say she was, and I'd be a bit surprised if somebody beat Lily Evans to Head Girl. The real question is who's Head Boy? I can't decide if it'll be Remus or Claude."

"Maybe it'll be Constantin," I said with a smirk, watching Leah almost drop her toast at the mention of the boy she had been secretly seeing for nearly a year.

Why secretly? Partly because our father was only slightly joking when he said we couldn't date until we were married… Actually, his exact words were that Leah couldn't date until she'd gotten her Apparition license (which will probably be never) and I'm not allowed to date until Leah's married, so technically, according to prior regulation… never. So we've been dating behind our father's back for years, although usually our mother figures it out and then pretends ignorance.

The other reason is because Leah is best friends with Sirius Black, and there's little Sirius hates more than Slytherins and Snape, and as one can probably guess, Constantin is the Slytherin prefect and a close friend of Severus Snape. Needless to say, if Sirius ever found out there would be a minor disaster.

My father looked up at the clock.

"All right, girls, hurry up! It's going to be time to go soon, and we don't want you to be late. Are your trunks at the foot of your beds and ready to go?"

"Yes," we said together, quickly shoveling eggs down our throats and buttering several slices of toast to go.

"All right, finish your tea while I get them in the car and then we're leaving."

I quickly stirred a bit more milk into my tea than usual so that it would cool fast enough for me to simply pour it down my throat and saw Leah pouring spoonful after spoonful of sugar into hers before doing the same, and she normally never put milk in hers. We wrapped our buttered toast in napkins when we saw our father taking our trunks downstairs and out to the car, grabbed our coats, wands, and shoes and scrambled out the door after him. Our mother followed close behind, locking the door with a quick tap of her wand.

We climbed into the car as our father slammed the trunk, Leah and I crunching on our toast as we curled our legs underneath us and began merrily chattering about who we thought would be wearing what, what sort of shape various Quidditch players would have let themselves fall into over the summer, and most importantly, who was going to be Head Boy? It was a long drive from Leeds to King's Cross, but our father didn't like us taking the train all the way down and then all the way back up, and preferred dropping us off himself.

"Mum," I whined when we were halfway there, as I well knew, "how long until we get there?"

Our mother didn't even bother answering, just sighing exasperated.

"Suzy, why can't it be your last year instead?" our father said, surprisingly good-natured. "Leah was never this much trouble, even asked to carry her own trunk as a first year even though it weighed twice what she did."

"Because, Daddy," I whined, "I still have another long year to go after she's done. It's not my fault Mum couldn't just have both of us at once and call it a day!"

We all laughed.

It was the most common joke concerning Leah and myself, who were more like twins than just sisters in so many ways. Even though we were very different in our habits and our ways, we were hardly ever apart from each other, and Mattia Holmwood, a Ravenclaw prefect in Leah's year who was one of the best friends a person could have. We would spend nights together in the Gryffindor common room reading to each other, gossiping, doing each other's hair, and just generally avoiding our homework until Mattia insisted that we get down to work.

Finally, as always, I grew too bored to socialize, even with Leah, and I pulled out a book Professor Sprout had loaned me on the use of Runes in Herbology. It wasn't the most interesting text, but I knew she would quiz me on it, and I didn't want to be caught unawares. Over the top of the pages I saw Leah pull out the book Lily Evans had given her on the uses of Runes in Transfiguration. Like myself, Runes was Leah's best class and she framed everything she did through that lens.

Sisters, indeed.


	2. A Certain Romance: Betsy

**A/N: This chapter is from the point of view of Betsy.**

**-J**

The best thing about living in London was being able to literally roll out of bed, throw on clothes, scarf down breakfast, and know that I would be able to make it to King's Cross in absolutely no more than hour, and that's if the apocalypse happens and hinders my arriving as promptly as usual. I felt a bit bad for Iris, still living out on the coast where I had been raised, but I felt especially bad for Susanna and Leah having to come all the way down from Leeds to catch a train all the way back up to Scotland.

"Betsy!" called Brigitta's mother through the fireplace. "It's time to be up, or you might miss the train!"

I groaned, hollering, "I'm up, Mrs. Yosida! I'll be there soon!" but I couldn't be sure she'd heard me. It was possible she'd already retreated back through the fireplace to wake up her own daughter.

My parents were Muggles, and very, very conservative Muggles at that. It wasn't that they didn't love me. I was always a bit of a flower child, and they simply didn't understand me. When I received my Hogwarts letter it was like they looked at me and didn't even know what to make of their daughter, so as soon as I turned fifteen, I moved out, got a place in London and a waitressing job in the summers at the Leaky Cauldron, and basically spent every day with Brigitta, who also lived in London. Sure, I had to leave behind my childhood best friend, Iris Prewett, who still lived out by the sea with her Wizarding family that completely understood and accepted her, but we saw each other at school, and sometimes she was able to come and visit me.

I climbed out of bed and pulled on my yellow A-line dress, cream tights, and the brown oxfords I'd found small enough to fit my feet and worn every day for just about four months and they were probably going to fall apart by the end of the year, but I would spell them back together for as long as I could. I quickly pulled my hair into a messy bun and grabbed my trunk, wand, and a piece of toast and Flooed through to the Yoshida home.

"Is that Betsy?" Brigitta's voice floated down the stairs at me. Then she rushed down the stairs in a purple sundress, grinning at me and rushing down to hug me.

"I brought my breakfast," I said, holding up my toast, "so your mum doesn't have to feed me."

She snorted.

"Right, because my mother would ever not feed you. Don't be absurd. You look lovely, by the way."

"Thanks," I said, allowing her father to take my trunk and carry it out to the carry.

At first, I had been very nervous when Iris and I spent a week after our first summer with Brigitta's family. After all, I was a scrawny, scruffy little Muggleborn. I'd seen the older purebloods, particularly Sirius Black, who according to everybody was the very picture of what a pureblood ought to be. He was smooth and regal even when he was being immature and stupid, managing to always be aloof and above it all. How was I supposed to fit in with that?

But the Yoshida family, apparently, were the opposite of all my expectations. They, like the Prewetts, were a bit of an eccentric sort of wizarding family, and while Brigitta was absolutely spoiled by her doting mother, they were thinking more about what sort of brilliant career their daughter would have rather than who they were going to marry her off to.

I could certainly respect that.

After Mrs. Yoshida shoved an entire batch of pancakes down my throat saying I was "too thin", they ushered Brigitta and me into the car.

Mr. Yoshida was a horrendous driver, and even the quick trip to King's Cross left all three women in the car gripping the car doors with white knuckles and more than a hint of fear. The horn went off several times at innocent drivers who hadn't actually done anything worth being honked at for, but according to Mr. Yoshida they were being "racist Muggle pigs, not yielding!"

When we finally made it to the parking lot I was actively trying to slow my heart rate and caught Brigitta's eye. She was doing the same, and we laughed breathlessly.

"So," I said as Mr. Yoshida hopped away to get us trolleys, "how long are you leaving me for when we get on the train?"

My three best friends, Brigitta, Iris, and Susanna were the prefects of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. They had to be briefed by Head Boy and Girl at the beginning of every year on the Hogwarts Express. I don't know why. Nothing they did ever changed.

"Fine," I pouted. "I'll have to put up with the Marauders minus Lupin while I wait for you idiots, but I guess I can survive it."

She laughed. We both knew I wasn't really complaining about the Marauders. Sure, Peter was a little weird sometimes, but he was generally all right and Sirius… Sirius was more than all right. Sirius could do just about whatever he wanted to me and I'd be all right with it, but then, just about every girl in Hogwarts could say the same.

"Come on, then," she said, "let's get going."

We pushed our carts into the station, through the sea of Muggles toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten. It had become second nature, walking straight for a solid brick wall and not worrying about suffering bodily injury from it, but when I was eleven years old, I had been terrified. Iris had told me several times and explained to my parents, that it was perfectly safe and was nothing to worry about, but that didn't stop me from being terrified.

Just as every year since then, however, I plowed straight through the brick barrier as if I hadn't even seen it there and found myself on platform nine and three-quarters surrounded by my fellow witches and wizards, students readying themselves for the trip and parents kissing their children goodbye.

The first year I came with the Yoshida's, the year I left my parents, I had felt a bitter, angry feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why couldn't my parents be like those parents? Even the parents of Muggleborns like myself could be seen hugging and kissing their children, waving goodbye as their children filed onto the strange scarlet steam engine and off to a school where they would learn things the parents would never fully understand.

"Brigitta! Betsy!"

We were used to hearing our names together, but the voice was that of Susanna, the person in our little group who talked the most. She rushed forward, Iris trailing behind her, excitement on her face.

"Leah gave me very, very exciting news this morning."

I raised my eyebrow.

"What news would this be, Suzy?"

"Well, she says that Sirius told her that Lupin likes me."

I hadn't seen Susanna so pleased with herself in a very long time. On the other hand, I couldn't help but laugh at that. Had she really not noticed this?

"Congratulations!" I said, pretending I had no idea, although everybody else could tell that the boy was practically drooling to rip her clothes off by the way he watched her study. From the way she beamed, though, she truly was oblivious to the fact.

"Thanks!" she said eagerly. "I was thinking that after the prefects meeting we should stalk the Marauders and I can flirt with him while you flirt with Sirius."

Ah, the key to my heart, opportunities to flirt with Sirius. It wasn't that I was at all unique in that respect, for I think half of Hogwarts would have liked to have been handed an opportunity to have a go at the boy on a silver platter, but I had the unique ability to actually have my heart's desire – that is, the flirtation. After all, Susanna's older sister, Leah, happened to be one of Sirius's closest friends, which put me around him and in much closer quarters to him than most other Gryffindors could even boast, and on a far more regular basis.

"That sounds… agreeable," I said slowly, and Brigitta and Iris snorted with laughter. It wasn't long before I was laughing with them, of course, at the ridiculous nature of my own indifference.

"Come on, then," she said. "Let's get you with Leah before we go off to the meeting!"

Susanna dragged me forward to find Leah, allowing Mr. Yoshida to carry our things onto the train. When she finally found her sister, she was already sitting in the Marauders' compartment, but only Sirius and Peter sat with her.

"Where's James?" I asked, taking a seat beside Peter.

"With the prefects," Sirius said with an almost bitter voice.

The girls all frowned. Was James stalking Lily Evans again? He had not done so much of that during the last term and we thought he'd finally grown up a bit, but perhaps we'd assessed too soon.

"He's Head Boy," Peter said softly.

I blinked.

"Head Boy?" Iris said incredulously. "_James Potter?_ Oh, Merlin help us all."

James was Head Boy. James Potter was Head Boy. That really took some getting used to, and it was clear from the look on Susuanna's face that she probably wasn't ever going to be used to it.

"Off you go, then, ladies," Sirius said with a note of bitterness still in his voice. "We'll see you when your time is done. Oh, Little Papp, say hello to Remus for me."

He grinned and winked at Susanna, who actually blushed just a little bit as the three of them turned and made their way for the prefect's carriage.

"She didn't know, you know," I said turning to Sirius when the door had closed and propping my feet up on his lap, which he didn't push away. Instead, he grabbed the toes of my shoes and moved them from side to side, playing with my feet like I was a child. "She had no idea that Lupin was mad about her. I thought everyone knew."

"Sometimes," Leah said softly, "it's harder to see for certain when someone likes you, especially if you like them as well, because you can't be sure if it's reality or wishful thinking. And you know Suzy's the queen of wishful thinking."

"So she likes him back," Sirius said thoughtfully. "Shouldn't be hard to have them shagging by the end of fall term. Knowing Remus and how proper he is, they'll probably be engaged by Easter."

Leah groaned.

"Please, please don't say that," she said. "If Suzy gets engaged they'll expect me to be engaged and I just don't think I could cope with that. Besides," she said thoughtfully, "she's not even allowed to date until I'm married."

"Well, then, hurry up and get married," Sirius teased, "because I'm setting them up whether your parents like it or not! I can find you a boyfriend too, Papp. What do you say?"

"I say no thank you," she sneered. "Your taste in women is so awful, how can I trust your taste in men?"

"Nonsense," Sirius snapped good-naturedly. "I've got your sister set up with Remus, haven't I? Here, you can have Peter!"

Peter and Leah looked at each other and both began protesting at once. Sirius and I laughed.

"What?" Sirius cried through the tears of laughter streaming down his face. "You don't want to make dozens of little blond babies with our dearest Peter? You wouldn't even have to change your monogram! Leah Pettigrew. It's got a nice ring to it, yeah?"

"You suggest that again," Leah said, "and I'll be certain to set you up with the sweetest little nerd I know, see how you like jokes then."

The running joke, of course, was when Sirius had decided to date a Ravenclaw Mattia and Leah had warned him against and the girl talked of nothing but school and the library in bed. The relationship lasted all of a week before Sirius couldn't take it anymore and he actually vowed off Ravenclaws as a general rule after that.

"They're not all single-minded," he had said, gesturing at Mattia and Iris, "but you just never know and I'm not risking that sort of catastrophe again. From now on I'm a Gryffindor-only sort of man."

I snorted at that, but my heart-rate quickened. There weren't many girls in Gryffindor he hadn't dated, and some of them, like Lily and Leah and Alyson, whom he would never date, and Brigitta, who would never date him. There was always a chance he would date someone a second time, and Merlin knows most would take him back, but I couldn't help but hope a little that maybe I was the next in line.

The prefects came back, James and Remus, Brigitta, Iris and Susanna.

"We're short three seats," Sirius said, amused. "I guess some lap sitting is in order."

"Right," said Susanna brightly. "Betsy, I think you ought to sit on Sirius's lap, make room for Iris."

"Right," I said cheekily. "Well, then, you ought to sit on Remus's lap, make room for James."

Both of them turned a brilliant shade of red, and Sirius said, "All right, and if we put Yoshida on Papp's lap, we've got seats for everyone! Let's go, rearrange!"

I followed Susanna's instruction, settling myself on Sirius's lap and hardly believing my good fortune. What was really entertaining, though, was watching Remus trying to decide what to do with his hands once Susanna was settled on his lap looking a bit pleased with herself.

"How was the meeting?" Sirius asked, resting his chin nonchalantly on my shoulder.

"Fine," Susanna sighed, leaning back into Remus in a way that might have looked discrete if we didn't all know exactly what she was up to. "Same as always. The real entertainment, though, was the look on Lily's face when she saw James was Head Boy. She thought he was messing with Remus's badge, trying to sneak into the meeting."

"Yeah, I brought the letter to prove it," James said with a grin. "I had a feeling she wouldn't believe it. I hardly believed it myself."

"Any exciting new developments brought on by our lovely new Head Boy and Girl?" Leah asked, shifting with slight discomfort at having Brigitta's boney body rested on her lap.

"Not yet," Remus said. "But I daresay James has an idea or two up his sleeve. I don't think Lily's going to get another night of solid sleep for the rest of the year. Although, she seemed surprised he didn't ask her out or anything. It was straight down to business. I think she suspected you were trying to put her at ease so you could catch her off her guard."

"Nonsense," James said indignantly, "I've already tried that. It doesn't work. Anyway, I actually want to do a good job. I'd rather not be the person who screwed up our seventh year, especially as this is our last happy year to remember before we go off into the war."

I shivered and was surprised when Sirius wrapped his arms around me comfortingly. I had forgotten I was sitting on him.

There was a war on outside, which we often forgot about during school, but when Mulciber had used a Dark curse on Mary MacDonald two years earlier we were all painfully reminded that it wasn't so far away as we'd like to think and nowhere was really safe.

It's not that I wasn't prepared for the war or that I didn't want to fight, but it was difficult to think about the fact that there was a very good likelihood that by the time I'd finished my seventh year, most of the people I was sitting with would have either lost a loved one or died themselves. My one blessing about having Muggle parents was that they weren't likely to be targets, not like the Prewetts or the Yoshidas, who were well-known blood traitors.

"You'll fight, then?" Susanna asked. "All of you?"

"Of course," James said. "Won't you?"

"I think so," Susanna said slowly. "I mean, I haven't actually thought about it much, but I suppose I have to pick a side, don't I? Most of us don't get the luxury of not choosing. I'm not sure what use I'd be, though. All I'm good at is Runes."

"You're a very talented witch," Remus said softly. "And Runes could end up being tremendously helpful. You never know. But I think you'd be more helpful than you're giving yourself credit for."

To everyone's amusement, Susanna turned to face Remus so that their faces were very, very close together. I could see his neck turning pink from where I sat on the other end of the compartment, and Sirius was snickering into my neck so as not to spoil the moment.

"We don't even have class together, Lupin," she said softly, and the way Remus watched her lips form the words made me want to just push their mouths together and call it a day, but I was a bit preoccupied with not squealing at the feel of Sirius's mouth against my neck as he held in his laughter. "How would you know how good of a witch I am?"

Remus's eyes were wide and his mouth hung open slightly slack. I was certain that he was going to attempt to say something witty or beg her to marry him or something, but he merely stared at her for a moment. Then, when his voice had started to make noise and he had obviously found whatever words he had been forming in his half-numb mind, the door to the compartment slid open.

"Anything from the trolley, dears?"

Half the compartment groaned while we all fished around for our money.

So close.


	3. Can You Keep A Secret?: Leah

**A/N: Leah's POV**

The anticipation of something romantic happening between either set of obvious pair lingering on the edge of snogging was a bit sickening and certainly boring, as neither pair seemed to want to be the first to act, despite Susanna's best efforts and Sirius's attempts.

"I need some air," I sighed once all my own sweets were gone. Brigitta stood to let me out. I got my robes out of my trunk and said, "I may be by later, but for now I'll let Brigitta have her own seat and I'll go socialize with my dorm mates. Would you like me to tell Lily anything, James?"

"No, I can't think of anything," he said to my surprise. "But tell Mattia I've still got her quill and I'll give it back to her at the feast. I don't feel like fishing it out of my pocket right now."

"All right," I said. "See you guys later."

I made my way down the corridor, fully intending to make it to the compartment housing my friends soon enough, but I had a stop to make first toward the other side of the train. I passed the compartment that housed Constantin and caught his eye through the open door as I went by. Several moments later I heard footsteps following me down the corridor.

I found an empty compartment and went inside, taking a seat and leaving the door open for him.

"What took you so long?" he said, sliding the door closed behind him and taking a seat beside me.

"I didn't want to seem like I was rushing out," I sighed, cuddling up against him. "Sirius would have gotten suspicious, and that would make this miserable. He'd never leave me alone."

Constantin made an impatient noise. He didn't like Sirius, which was understandable. Sirius didn't like him, either. In fact, Sirius often went out of his way to bother Constantin, mostly because he was good friends with Snape. I didn't understand that particular friendship, but I wasn't going to penalize Constantin for it. After all, I was friends with the Marauders, and he didn't fault me for that.

"How was your summer?" he asked, clearly wanting to talk about anything but the Marauders.

"Erm," I muttered, trying to think how to not mention the Marauders in my summer. "Suzy and I spent some time in Germany visiting family."

He flinched.

I had no idea why he always did that. He knew I had family in Germany, and that they weren't originally from that area. My family fled Hungary when Grindelwald came through, but some family members weren't so lucky. A few survived, miraculously, but a lot of the Papp family was wiped out. My father's family had been lucky to make it to England.

But a lot of people had had family affected by Grindelwald. I didn't know why it bothered him so much. He never said anything about his family being targeted. So I thought perhaps his family had been wiped out and he didn't want to think about it.

"What else did you do?" he asked, clearly eager to talk about something else.

"Oh, practiced Quidditch," I said casually, carefully leaving out who I practiced Quidditch with.

"That sounds nice," he whispered, kissing my cheek near my ear. "I wish I had your Quidditch talent. Maybe then I could try out, knock Potter off his broom, and we'd win the Cup for once."

I knew that was far from the only reason he wanted to knock James off his broom, but I decided not to push that particular point. Unfortunately, the only thing I could think of was, "So James is Head Boy."

Constantin snorted.

"Yeah, he is," he said. "Now I'm sure that Dumbledore's lost his mind. I thought he might do something stupid like give it to Lupin or Ansel, but I didn't think he'd be barmy enough to give it to Potter."

I frowned.

I wasn't sure what was wrong with Remus or Claude being Head Boy, and although I found James being Head Boy shocking, I thought there was a good chance he'd do a great job. After all, he wanted to impress Lily.

"Why are we talking about such silly things?" he whispered, kissing a line down my jaw. "Why are we bothering to talk at all?"

I could barely contain the shiver that ran through me. In truth, our relationship had been mostly a physical one since its inception. I had a hard time getting boyfriends.

Or rather, I had a hard time getting boyfriends the Marauders didn't scare away.

One of the nice things about Constantin was that he wasn't easily scared by the Marauders, although there was the downside of his detesting them and having to keep everything secret. He was attractive, intelligent, and treated me quite well. So who was I to argue with the snogging? The snogging was good, enjoyable, and there was that rush of knowing it was something I wasn't supposed to be doing.

His lips brushed against mine and I surrendered to the kiss, kissing him back a bit, but mostly letting him take charge. He liked to be in control, and I didn't mind not being in control. After all, I'd been the back seat of most things. Susanna was always the one bossing me around, growing up. Sirius and James controlled who I talked to and who had the right to talk to me. Lily and Mattia controlled what homework I did when and for how long. It wasn't such a stretch that Constantin more or less controlled the pace and content of our relationship.

And it wasn't that I minded. I hadn't ever really craved for control and power over anything, and as long as I had say when it mattered to me I didn't mind letting someone else make the decisions when it didn't. So Susanna always got first choice on candy and slices of cake, Sirius and James picked our practice sequences, Mattia and Lily decided our study patterns, and Constantin more or less dictated the flow and nature of our relationship.

One thing that I liked to keep control of, however, was whether or not his tongue was allowed in my mouth. It had taken me months to get to the point where I felt comfortable with what felt like such an odd intrusion, but once I decided I was going to try it, I decided I liked it and allowed it about every other kiss. He had expressed frustration that I wouldn't let him explore my mouth every time we kissed, and I told him that if we did the same thing all the time I would get very bored, and although he didn't like the answer, he couldn't argue too much. After all, I didn't complain very often about anything, and so when I put my foot down he just dealt with it, and with surprising grace.

The other thing I had put my foot down on was my friendship with Sirius and James. He had tried, when we were first together, to talk me into not being friends with them, but Sirius, James and I had become friends very early into our first year and they were almost as important to me as my own sister.

But really none of that mattered in the moment. We'd gone without each other all summer, and I figured that proved he was a patient sort of boy, when he wanted to be. I allowed him access to my mouth and he eagerly began exploring the familiar territory is if it might have changed in the months we'd been apart. He'd been eating Pumpkin Pasties, and I nearly pulled away, but I decided it wouldn't be fair. What if he didn't like the taste of chocolate?

But that was silly. Everyone loved chocolate.

I did enjoy the kiss, but I was conscious of how little time was left in the train ride and the fact that I still had to spend time with the girls before heading back to my sister and the Marauders. It was probably horrible of me, but I was beginning to think out the timing of when I would have to leave to not draw suspicion from Sirius as Constantin began to draw his lips down my neck, his hot, wet mouth leaving kisses as it went.

I let him have his fun for a while, although not altogether enjoying as much as I might have if I wasn't so aware of my limited time, and eventually I pulled away, checking my watch and sighing heavily.

"What's wrong?" he whispered, brushing some of my blonde hair back out of my face.

"I promised the girls I'd spend some of the ride with them," I said as if it were some major imposition. "There's not much time left and I told Sirius I'd be back before the end of the ride. He'll be suspicious if I don't show."

Constantin sighed, and kissed my lips once more.

"All right," he sighed. "Oh, and next time your sister gets it in her mind to make you up, don't let her," he whispered in my ear. "You're far too pretty to cover up with paints."

I blushed a bit as I kissed him goodbye before making my way back up the train, thankful that the door to the Marauder's compartment was closed as I went by, finding where Lily and the others would be and sliding the door open. Lily, Mattia, Alyson, and Mary were finishing the last of their sweets as I entered, and they looked up at me with surprise.

"Leah!" Lily cried. "I thought you decided not to come! You've missed the news, but of course, you've heard from the boys. You know I'm sure, that Potter is Head Boy." She pulled a disgusted face. "It's going to be a long year."

"Oh, Lily," Alyson said, "he's gotten better. Why don't you give him a chance?"

"Are you telling me to date Potter?"

"She didn't say that," I laughed. "She said give him a chance, as in, a chance to prove himself as a decent Head Boy. He's taking the whole thing rather seriously."

"I wish he wouldn't," Lily sniffed. "I'm not really interested in waiting for him to prove himself as I expect him to be. I wish he would just get on with it."

"And what if he's not what you expect him to be?" Mattia said softly. "We've been telling you for years, Lily, there's more to James Potter than you'd like to admit."

"Oh, by the way," I said, "James has your quill, Mattia. He said he'll give it to you when we get to the feast."

Mattia just nodded, turning back to the book of the use of poisons in healing that she had been examining. Alyson had gotten it for her birthday the year before and she already had scrolls of extensive notes on its contents. Sometimes it worried me, the pathways her mind took, but then, Susanna and Mattia had bonded over their interest in things like poison and the Darker side of things. It was one thing about my sister that Constantin couldn't help but like about her, and one thing that Sirius found to be a bit concerning.

In a way, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. Her primary obsession was reclassifying things that had been mislabeled as Dark, such as certain runic texts, certain Dark creatures, a few of the lighter Dark spells, and some of the more useful poisons. Professors Kettleburn and Babbling had both told her that they were interested in her self-studied obsession, and suggested that she write essays on them to be submitted to various magazines. She was writing up an essay on vampires and werewolves for Kettleburn and another on an obscure runic text for Babbling. The likelihood of her being published was probably low, but I didn't think Susanna cared much. She would have done the work anyway; it didn't hurt to have a focus for it.

I helped her a lot with the work, over the summer, for the runic texts. It was fun, translating together, and gave us something to do on the days when the weather wasn't good enough for me to go play Quidditch. Susanna would lock herself up with her books regardless of the weather if she could, but I was a more social, outdoorsy human being and I couldn't stand staying inside on a sunny day, especially as England had so few of them.

"How's Susanna?" Mary asked.

Mary was one of those people who were just incredibly polite. She would have asked after the devil himself if he was an acquaintance or relation of the person she was conversing with. She didn't get on well with Susanna, and rather thought her strange and a bit intimidating, but she was my sister so Mary asked after her after every holiday.

"She's good," I said honestly. "I think she's nearly got Remus to have a heart attack, but that whole scenario was bound to happen sooner or later."

"The way she flirted with him at the prefects meeting," Mattia said with a smile. "It was almost shameful."

"Oh, knowing Suzy," I said with a laugh, "it was nothing if not entirely shameful."

We all laughed a bit, thinking of Susanna's attempts at getting boyfriends in her younger years, when she had been almost embarrassingly provocative about her intentions. At least she'd gotten a bit of finesse, for the sake of her reputation, or what little of a reputation she had. Lily smiled a little.

"How's her essay on werewolves coming?" she said slowly.

"Ah, good, good," I said, accepting a chocolate frog from Alyson. "She's hit a bit of a roadblock with the part about vampires. The case studies aren't really very much in her favor at this point. But I think she'll be able to find enough to scrape together at least a decent argument for reform in the case of vampires, if not outright scraping the old laws and writing up entirely new ones. I think she's got a great case for werewolves. Professor Kettleburn's letter after he read her outline and some of her notes that she sent him was so enthusiastic I could almost hear his voice squeaking with joy."

"It's so exciting," Mattia said, "that she's getting to do something like this. How is the runic text coming?"

Mattia wasn't in Ancient Runes, but she had a great appreciation for the subject, so the two of us spent quite a lot of time discussing the implications of Susanna's work and what it could mean for the Darker end of the field, should she accomplish her goals. Lily was frowning at the wall behind me as if thinking something over. When the discussion of the runic text died down a bit she said what was on her mind.

"Do you think she knows?"

I knew what Lily was referring to, as did Mattia and Alyson. The four of us had deduced in our fourth year that Remus Lupin was a werewolf. Once we'd all sat down and actually talked about the things we noticed, it didn't take long at all to put it all together. Mary, however, didn't, so we had a habit of talking over her head about it.

"I don't," I said. "But I think it shouldn't be too long until she figures it out, given the nature of the essay she's doing. I just don't think she'd had much cause to consider it before."

It was the one reason, I thought, that Remus might resist her advances a bit longer than he might have otherwise done. He was quite nervous about being hated for his condition. It wasn't so out of the ordinary, what with all the anti-werewolf legislation and the general fear surrounding them, but Remus must have known that Susanna was a bit too fearless for her own good. It was probably one of the things he loved about her, her crusade for the rights of so-called Dark creatures. But the real question, and we all were wondering what the answer would be, was could his admiration for her crusade outweigh his fear of rejection?

"That should be very interesting," Mattia said slowly, ignoring, as the rest of us were, the puzzlement on Mary's face. "For both of them, actually."

"Yes," Lily muttered. "I hope it doesn't hinder anything. Sometimes he doesn't know what's good for him."

"And sometimes she can be a bit stupid about her safety," I added.

"Sister, sister," Mattia and Alyson said in sing-songy voices, very obviously referring to my secret affair with Constantin.

Yes, it wasn't shaping up much like a secret, but the real thing was keeping it from the Marauders and my parents.

I assured them there was nothing dangerous about Constantin, but nobody really believed me. In fact even Lily, the hypocrite, had told me to stay away from him, that it was a bad idea to get tangled up in his circle, but she'd been friends with Severus Snape for years without listening to good advice about his poor character.

But that was different. Snape was lying to her and she was too good of a soul to see it. Constantin wasn't lying to me. And I knew it because I didn't have Lily's inherent need to see the good in people. I had always seen them as they were, good, bad, and all.

"I think we're nearly there," Lily said, looking out the window, thankfully saving me from having to come up with a witty veiled response to the jab at my love life. "You should get changed, Leah. We should be arriving any minute."

I quickly changed into my robes, had Lily straighten my Gryffindor tie, and not even a full minute later, we had come to a stop at Hogsmeade station, ready for our last year at Hogwarts.


	4. Fools in Love: Remus

**A/N: Remus's POV**

It had been a long, long train ride, and while a part of me was glad that I didn't have the torturous feel of Susanna's body on my lap, another part of me rather didn't want her to move at all. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought she was flirting with me, but that was silly. Why would Susanna Papp be flirting with me?

I mean, she was no Lily Evans, as James pointed out every time I mentioned how nice she looked out loud when I meant to be remarking it in my head. Still, I thought she was beautiful, and I hadn't been the first boy to think so. She'd dated a bit when we were younger, even had quite a flirtatious spree with Sirius for a while, but nothing came of it, thankfully. But even more than how much I thought she was physically beautiful, there was something angelic about the work she was doing for Professor Kettleburn on werewolves and vampires that made my heart swell whenever I looked at her, whenever I saw her nose in a book about magical creatures.

At the same time, it was only a matter of time before she figured out my secret. Susanna wasn't like Leah, who had figured it out the same time as most of the other girls my year. She was a nice girl, but I didn't think she would be as forgiving. I mean, part of the reason she and Sirius didn't ever get together was because she didn't think he could handle her. Whatever that meant.

If Sirius Black couldn't handle her, there was no way I could give her what she wanted, what she needed. I couldn't keep up with the girl. I would be lucky to get temporary jobs. She would be traveling the world, being the most promising runic translator in several hundred years (as Professor Babbling told his classes regularly)and there would be no place in her life for a stuffy, scrawny, bookish werewolf who was nothing but madly in love with her.

All right, that was a bit dramatic, but the point of the matter was, there was just no place for me in her life, in the life she was sure to have once she published her much-anticipated papers and became famous. She wouldn't be allowed to marry me and keep all of that, not with laws and stigma the way they were. And yet, I wanted to be selfish for once and have her anyway, just to know that there was even a possibility that she could half think of me how I thought of her.

But she couldn't. I wasn't the sort of boy she went for, not the type she wanted. She, like Leah, liked her boys a bit wild and dangerous, and I had enough wild and dangerous once a month to last a lifetime without adding it into my other days. I was never going to be impulsive and bold like Sirius and James. The idea of flirting shamelessly with her in the middle of the Great Hall was absurd, and yet…

I didn't really have time to think much on the way thinking of such things made me feel because I realized Sirius was ushering me up toward a carriage, and I climbed in without thinking. It took me a moment when I was settled to realize that I was sitting right next to Susanna, who appeared to have been similarly ushered into the carriage by Betsy. I was about to turn and scowl at Sirius, but he had slammed shut the carriage door before I could properly rearrange my stunned expression and the carriage took off.

"Well, well," she said slowly, cocking her head slightly in a way I had seen Sirius do with many a girl and smirking a little bit. "Long time no see, Remus."

I laughed a bit, trying to diffuse how awkward I felt, but it didn't work.

"Sorry about them," I said softly. "I guess they think it's funny or something. I have a hard time keeping up with what Sirius finds amusing. It's tiresome."

"Yes, I can see that," she said, scooting a little bit closer. She looked up at me, biting her bottom lip in a way that made me want to jump across the ever-shrinking space between us and put my teeth where hers were. "Do you find me tiresome?"

"N-no," I said honestly. "No, of course not, Susanna. Why would you think that?"

"Suzy," she corrected for probably the hundredth time since I'd known her. "It's Suzy. It's what my friends call me. You're my friend, aren't you, Remus?"

"Yes," I said, although if I was being honest with myself, I didn't want to be her friend at all. I wanted to be so much more than that.

"Well, then," she said, "call me Suzy."

But I didn't want to call her Suzy. Susanna was a beautiful name, and anyway, I actually daydreamed about being so close to her and having so many pet names for her that I would never have to call her by her real name ever again. It was a stupid dream, but a rather nice one.

She went back to nibbling her lip again and I nearly snapped.

"Excited for Hogwarts?" I managed to choke out, looking over to the seat across from me.

"I guess," she said with a shrug. "More so than usual."

She was incredibly close to me and I fought the urge to back away out of the zone of temptation as I said, "Why's that?"

"Oh, well," she said with a little laugh, "because it's the last year of Marauders. I can only imagine the sorts of things you lot will get up to this year."

I could imagine it too, Susanna lying beneath me, moaning my name as I–

"We're here!" I cried loudly, opening the door and stepping out into the cool night air that seemed especially cool against my burning cheeks.

Was that a sigh of disappointment, or was I just hearing things induced by wishful thinking? It was probably wishful thinking.

The fact of the matter was, if she really was flirting with me, it didn't have to mean anything. She and Sirius had flirted constantly, neither of them meaning a word of it. I didn't want to get caught up in something like that, only to find that she hadn't meant a word. Telling myself I was imagining it was painful, but allowing myself to believe only to find I was mistaken… I didn't want to deal with that sort of hurt.

When I spotted Sirius walking with James, Peter, Iris, Betsy, and Brigitta, I made certain to glare at his expectantly raised eyebrow with all the frustration I could muster. Yes, I liked spending time in the vicinity of Susanna, but being put on the spot like that was completely not on.

"Look," Sirius said defensively as we made our way into the entrance hall, "if you're upset about that, it was all Betsy."

"Wow," Betsy said, rolling her eyes, "way to take responsibility for your actions, Sirius. I didn't shove _both_ of them into the carriage."

"I'm maintaining my innocence in the whole matter," Sirius teased, but I just rolled my eyes and swatted him on the back of the head. I didn't have the energy or willpower to put up with his ridiculousness.

I made my way into the Great Hall, taking my seat at the Gryffindor table and watching Susanna walk to the Hufflepuff table, sitting down beside her dorm mate, Catrina Landau. Sirius, James, and Peter sat down around me, the girls going to sit in a different part of the table with Leah, Lily, Alyson, and Mary.

"How was the carriage, Moony?" James asked with a wink. "Any snogging?"

"Of course not," I insisted, feeling the blush creep into my cheeks once more as I looked quickly away from where Susanna was sitting, realizing she was turning to look in my direction once she was seated.

"The girl's crazy about you, Remus," Sirius said with the straightest face I had seen him use not in conjunction with my condition. "Honestly, if you can't seal this deal I'm going to start wondering about your sanity. She was practically begging for you to kiss her all day."

"No she wasn't," Peter said quietly. "She never said a word about it."

James rolled his eyes.

"Peter, girls don't always have to come out and say what they want. In fact, most of them don't," Sirius explained. "Sometimes you've got to read their actions and expressions."

"Like Evans," James said with a grin.

"No, James, not like that at all," I sighed. "Lily's made it quite clear she wants nothing to do with you."

"Ah, that may be what she says, mate, but you're not reading between the lines!" James said with a wink.

"That seems like a lot of work," Peter muttered, eyeing the empty gold plates hungrily.

"It's no wonder," Sirius chuckled, "that you've never had a girl, Pete. They take effort, energy, and attention. And a lot of reading between the lines." He turned back to me and said, "You need to go for it, Moony. You two would be great together."

I shook my head.

"No," I said. "You know I can't."

"Moony," Sirius sighed, "you know about her essay. She's incredibly tolerant. Who knows, she could even succeed in getting the laws changed!"

"Just because she's tolerant of vampires," I replied casually, "doesn't mean she'd be willing to date one."

"Probably true," Sirius conceded, "but it's completely different. Vampires are vampires all times of day, all days of the year. Werewolves only have their problems once a month when the moon's out."

"Look, what I'm saying is just because someone fights for centaur's rights, doesn't mean they're eager to be with one."

"You're missing the point, Moony," James argued. "The big difference is other creatures are always that other creature, but werewolves are human most of the time."

"And when they're not human, they're incredibly dangerous," I snapped. "She won't want me when she figures it out, guys, so stop pushing this. It wouldn't last and I'd rather not deal with the loss."

Sirius shook his head.

"She's not like that, Moony. She's a good girl, and she wouldn't care."

"You don't know that," I insisted, although if I was being honest with myself, there was a part of me that so badly wanted to believe he was right, that she really wouldn't care, and that when she found out about my affliction she would flirt with me even more, insisting that she would make the world better for me… But it was stupid to get my hopes up.

"Yes, I do!" Sirius insisted. "You'll see, Moony."

"If she's so perfect," I said bitingly, wanting the conversation to be over, "why didn't you date her?"

Sirius looked at me for a moment, confused, and then he seemed to remember their period of intense flirtation and he flushed with embarrassment, looking down at the gold plates.

"There was never really anything there, Moony," he whispered. "We teased, but it would have been like dating Leah. Nothing could have come of it. She felt nothing for me and I felt nothing for her, but the way she talks about you… there's something there, Remus. I know it. And we all know how you feel about her."

Before I could argue that there was nothing and that he obviously didn't know what he was talking about, the first years began to file in behind Professor McGonagall, heading up toward the front of the Great Hall with the watching eyes of the entire school on them. I should have paid attention to the Sorting, but my eyes wandered continually over to the Hufflepuff table, and every new Hufflepuff student only gave me more excuses to allow them to do so.

She was going to figure it out sooner or later, with her essay. She was a bright girl. So either she would be as fantastic as Sirius claimed and continue to flirt, or she would distance herself from me. No matter what I did, she would either want me or not based on that moment. Would it really be so bad to pursue her? After all, maybe showing interest, showing her the best sides of me would work in my favor when she began thinking over her decision of the matter. Would it really make it any worse?

When the Sorting had ended, the food appeared and my friends eagerly attacked the food, as they always did, but I was too busy watching Susanna attack the food on the Hufflepuff table to pay much attention to what had appeared in front of me.

No chicken, she hated chicken, but she went straight for the Shepard's Pie. Mashed potatoes, some sort of vegetable that Catrina tipped onto her plate… I smiled a bit in spite of myself. It wasn't that Susanna didn't like vegetable, on the contrary, she liked them very much, but when there was a feast they were the last thing on her mind. She loved meat. In fact, he had often bonded at James's summer parties over our love of rare steak.

I suddenly frowned, thinking. She… she loved rare steak. She got sick with alarming regularity, although I'd never really thought out when before… She worked very hard on werewolf rights. Could it be…?

"Has Leah ever mentioned Susanna's health to you before?" I said softly, trying to feel out my suspicions.

"No, I don't think so," Sirius said slowly. "I mean, she gets sick a lot, but I don't think it's ever anything too serious."

I frowned.

"She gets sick a lot," I commented.

"Weak immune system," James said automatically as he shoveled chicken in to his mouth.

"She loves raw steak," I said casually.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at me.

"And her essay," I whispered. "I mean, it's crazy, I know, but isn't there a shot that she could be… that she might be…"

"Remus I don't think," Sirius said slowly, but James cut him off.

"Wait, you're not saying what I think you're saying, are you?" James said, baffled. "You don't actually think Suzy's a… well… that she has your same condition?"

"Isn't it possible?" I insisted, knowing in the back of my mind that I was allowing myself to get my hopes up, dangerously. "Isn't it possible that she could be?"

"Wouldn't you know?" Sirius reasoned. "Wouldn't you be in the same place at that time?"

"What if Dumbledore wanted to protect our privacy?" I said eagerly. "What if he put us in different places to keep us from knowing? It's not a secret most people would want anyone to know about, you know."

"Why wouldn't Leah have told you when she found out about you?" Peter said softly. "She didn't say a word."

I thought back to when the girls had confronted me about my lycanthropy. I had been terrified, especially at Leah discovering. She was one of our closest friends, but she was also Susanna's sister. They insisted they still wanted to be my friends, and that they wouldn't tell a soul, after I made them absolutely promise not to tell anyone.

"Even Suzy?" Leah had asked.

"Especially your sister," I had said urgently.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had known that she would eventually figure out the truth for herself but the idea that she would ever treat me differently was so painful that I wanted to put it off as long as possible.

"Maybe she tried to tell me," I said slowly, "but I was too distressed to understand."

"Oh, this ought to be good," Sirius muttered, shaking his head. I scowled at him.

"She seemed really eager to tell Susanna about it," I explained. "She seemed very put out when I told her that her sister was the last person on earth I wanted to know."

"Because for one thing," Sirius said sharply, "she and Suzy share everything. There are no secrets between those two. For another, she knew Suzy would have loved to have known, for the sake of her research and her essay. Think of all the library dates you missed out on by denying her the right to tell her sister!"

For a split second, I could almost picture us in the library, leaning together to look at the faded words of an old book, her hand on my thigh for balance as she leaned, and my lips linger over her silky hair, inhaling the scent of her as I completely disregarded the words I was supposed to be reading…

I shivered, shaking my head firmly. I couldn't think of such things if I didn't know.

"Please, Sirius," I moaned. "Please, you need to find out."

"Why wouldn't she have told you?" James said. "When she found out about you, why wouldn't she have said?"

"Because Susanna would have sworn her to secrecy as I did," I said. "What if we're concealing the truth from each other accidentally? Sirius, please, you're the only one who could get something like this out of Leah. I need to know, Sirius. This could change everything. This could change my entire life."

Sirius considered me for a moment, and I was almost sure he was going to say no. Finally, he put down the bones of the chicken he had been eating and he looked me square in the eye.

"All right," he said, "but if I tell you I have an answer, it's the true answer as well as I could ever discover such a thing, all right? If I say it's not true, you drop this whole silly idea, all right?"

"You'll do everything you can?" I said eagerly. "You'll really try to find out?"

"Of course," Sirius said darkly, "and I'll keep an open mind, but you need to promise."

"Yes," I said quickly. "Of course. Yes."


	5. A Ravenclaw at the Gryffindor Table: M

**A/N: Mattia's POV**

The first day of classes back was pretty well packed for me. My mother had advised me against taking nine N.E.W.T. courses, but I'd ignored her.

"You don't need Divination to be a Curse-Breaker," she'd reasoned. "Or Astronomy. Even that would make your schedule so much simpler!" My brother, Jacob, had agreed with her, as had Alyson. But my father, as always, encouraged me to take as many classes as I could. If he could have gone back to Hogwarts and taken more classes, he would have, so instead he lived vicariously through me.

"But Divination?" he'd said. "Are you sure you don't want Runes? Or Care of Magical Creatures! That would be so much more interesting."

Except I'd nearly missed the mark for Ancient Runes anyway, and Care of Magical Creatures was neither useful for me nor interesting to me. It had been his favorite course, however, and he lamented every year that neither of his children had opted to take it.

"At least you're both doing Herbology," he'd sighed at one point. "At least you're learning something useful."

Right, I thought to myself, because there was nothing useful at all about Defense and Potions and Transfiguration. Apparently learning how to feed bowtruckles in captivity was more important and useful than deflecting curses in wartime.

Had I chosen my courses based on Alyson? Absolutely. Was there anything wrong with that? No…

After all, we were both hoping to be Curse-Breakers. That… that was something.

Had I chosen my future career based on Alyson?

It was an interesting question that I'd asked myself dozens of times, but I couldn't seem to determine the answer. I was happy, though, and it was a good career path, so did it really matter?

I certainly didn't think so.

Besides, even if we both got the job, there was no guarantee we would even see each other, with all the different places in the world Curse-Breakers were sent. With my luck, we would be separated. But that was all right.

Charms was my first class of the day, as I knew because Professor Flitwick always told the seventh year Ravenclaws their timetables early out of sheer excitement, and as I washed up, put on my school robes, and braided my hair, I tried to ignore the pacing of my dorm mate, Helena Ansel, whose twin, Claude, was a prefect with me. She was very stressed out, always, on the first day of school, as well as trials for Quidditch, the morning of every Quidditch match, and exams. Pacing was almost her regular state of being.

"All right, there, Helena?" I asked, finishing off the braid by securing it and tossing it back over my shoulder.

"I'm not ready," she snapped. "I'm not ready."

I raised an eyebrow at her in the mirror, but she disregarded it as she began pacing once more.

"Helena, you're not even in Charms. You don't have class until Transfiguration."

"And I'm not ready!" she squealed. "McGonagall's going to make my life hell!"

I sighed. Helena was a bright girl, but she was very, very tightly wound. I never said that to her, however, because she was my Quidditch captain, and I rather liked being on the team.

"Whatever you say, dear."

I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and made my way down to breakfast. If I didn't go to breakfast, Alyson would get upset with me, and if Susanna wasn't at breakfast, I would get upset with her, and then she would be incredibly nice about not calling me a hypocrite and feign annoyance at my pestering and promise to be there for breakfast the following day.

I wasn't too overly surprised to see her sitting with Leah, Alyson, and Lily, looking at her timetable.

"What have you got first?" I asked, flipping crepes onto my plate as I took the timetable Alyson had grabbed for me.

"Defense," Susanna said wistfully. "New professor this year."

"What's the name again?" Leah asked, looking down at her own timetable.

"Armbruster," I said, looking at my own. "Some former employee of one of the schools on the continent."

"Did Professor Dumbledore say which one?" Lily asked, curious.

"No, I don't think he did," Alyson mused.

"Why?" Leah asked. "Which one do you think it was?"

"Well," Lily said, frowning, "Armbruster is a German name…"

"You're thinking Durmstrang," Susanna and I said at once. Lily nodded.

"Why would Dumbledore hire a Defense teacher from Durmstrang?" Susanna asked incredulously. "They teach the other side of the coin there."

"Maybe he's on our side of the coin," I said softly, buttering some toast. "Maybe he's on the run from something, or maybe he's helping Dumbledore with something… Lots of strange things can happen during wartime."

"My guess is he's on the run," Alyson quipped cheerfully.

"You say that like it's a good thing," Susanna said, rolling her eyes. "What have you all got first?"

"Charms," Alyson, Leah, and I said together.

Lily would have taken Charms, if she had needed it for the job she wanted in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. It's not that she wasn't taking plenty of other classes she didn't need, but Charms hadn't fit into her schedule the previous year, so she disregarded it, much to Professor Flitwick's disappointment.

The most notable thing that happened in Charms was Sirius and Leah's behavior. There was some sort of nonverbal communication to start with, then they sat together when we did wandwork, and with the chaos that was Charms there was no telling what they discussed. Then again in Transfiguration, they sat beside each other. For a moment, I thought Professor McGonagall was going to separate them, but she seemed to think it better than James and Sirius sitting beside each other, so she let it go and she probably didn't notice, because they were so practiced at it, but I saw them passing notes all class long.

There was something very urgent about the way Sirius carried himself that day. Alyson noticed it too, and she mentioned it in the note she passed me in Transfiguration.

_Something's wrong with the Marauders. Sirius is acting off, and Remus is a bit twitchy today._

Rather than risk writing something down in the middle of Professor McGonagall's class, I nodded to signify that I had seen the same thing. Well, not the Remus bit, but now that she mentioned it, Remus did seem awfully twitchy. Counting days and thinking about my lunar calendar, he wasn't on a part of the cycle that should induce twitchy behavior. Perhaps it had to do with a prank.

But then, I reasoned to myself, Remus wasn't usually the one who got jumpy about pranks. He was the calm, collected one. Something had changed, something… something… Something was different.

I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but when I did, I knew I would be smacking myself in the face with how obvious it was. Yes, I was a Ravenclaw and I loved learning, but sometimes I would stand outside the door to Ravenclaw Tower for hours waiting for someone to help me get inside. Figuring things out wasn't my forte. In fact, one day there was a particularly difficult riddle and I told my friends about it at lunch the next morning. It had kept me outside most of the night but when I said it aloud Susanna said, "Oh, that's easy," and supplied the answer straight away.

Iris had also been shocked that Susanna had figured it out so quickly, so I didn't feel quite so bad, but sometimes I wished that girl was in Ravenclaw, if only to help me get into the Tower in a more timely manner. If I had her and my brother, Jacob, who had graduated, I was probably sure to get in more regularly than I already did.

But Susanna was a Hufflepuff and Jacob had graduated from Hogwarts a few years earlier. He was, in fact, teaching Charms on the continent. I had expected him to do something like Transfiguration or Arithmancy, but for some reason he maintained a strong passion for Charms and didn't accept teaching positions in any other subject, although he got several offers.

Jacob and I had always been quite close, so when he left the country for work and I went back to Hogwarts without him for the first time, I'd been very upset for several weeks. It didn't take too long before I'd filled the void in my life, however. Jacob wrote with almost alarming regularity, to the point where more normal people might have run out of things to say. And I found that not spending time studying with Jacob allowed me to spend more time with Alyson, Leah, Lily, and Susanna… but mostly Alyson.

On nights where I'd had a frustrating amount of difficulty getting into Ravenclaw Tower, I would go to Gryffindor Tower, which Leah and Alyson kept me apprised of the password to, just in case. Sometimes I didn't bother checking the Ravenclaw Tower before heading to Gryffindor. After all, I preferred Alyson's company to Helena's pacing any day. One of the main reasons I bothered to spend time at my own common room was the library situated there, surrounding the marble bust of Rowena Ravenclaw herself with her lost diadem upon her head. Alyson was a bit jealous that I had my own library in my common room, but I was incredibly jealous at how cozy the Gryffindor Common Room could be.

But perhaps I saw it that way because it was the place my friends gathered. It was a happy, cozy place because it was the place I could find all of my friends, including Susanna, who would go in there to be with her sister sometimes… or to watch Remus study.

Susanna… Perhaps his strange behavior had something to do with her. Had she discovered that he was a werewolf? No, he seemed too excited… Was it left over from her obvious flirtation with him that Iris had told me about? Possibly, but why would Sirius and Leah be getting involved in that? She would probably strip her clothes off and sneak into his room if she thought she could get away with it. Subtleties and wingmen were far from necessary.

"Miss Holmwood?"

Oh, no, that's what I get for not paying attention.

"I'm sorry, Professor, I'm afraid I zoned out for a moment," I said honestly, as softly and pitifully as I could.

Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes, but she had some leniency for her N.E.W.T. students, who had obviously proved themselves plenty capable to make it this far in the first place.

"See that it doesn't happen again, Miss Holmwood. Potter, would you care to inform Miss Holmwood what she missed as her mind wandered?"

"Of course, Professor," James said proudly, before launching into an explanation of the main complications of human transfiguration, as outlined in our text.

According to Professor McGonagall, his answer was actually better, clearer, and more precise than that which the book had provided, and so she begrudgingly gave him ten points for Gryffindor.

It wasn't that I hadn't known the material. In fact, I had practically memorized the first chapter of the book in anticipation of Professor McGonagall's usual line of questioning, but there was no beating James Potter at Transfiguration, despite the best efforts of nearly everyone.

Alyson caught my eye and rolled hers. It wasn't that she begrudged James his knowledge of Transfiguration, it was the fact that he'd hardly put in any effort at it at all and always topped the year in Transfiguration, and usually all the other years, to boot. He'd gotten an Outstanding on his O.W.L. without even looking at his notes… Not that he had any notes, but they all sort of collectively claimed Remus's notes in the name of the Marauders.

After lunch, we had Defense Against the Dark Arts, which everyone I knew was taking, except for Peter, who had only qualified for two N.E.W.T. level classes.

We sat down in the classroom, looking around at each other, greeting eagerly people we hadn't had classes with yet, and I found myself sitting between Leah and Alyson, who were chattering happily across me about lunch.

"I'm just glad they had a small plate of sandwiches or I would have gone to the kitchens," Leah sighed. "Fish and chips, really? I mean, was that honestly a necessary lunch food?"

"It was a nice change!" Alyson argued. Alyson really liked fish. "I get sick of eating sandwiches every day, no matter how good the Hogwarts sandwiches are!"

I cleared my throat as the teacher entered the room and they simmered down, ending the argument about fish that happened several times a year, every time they served fish and chips at lunch.

Professor Armbruster was tall with dark hair and a receding hairline. He wasn't exactly what one could have called fit, and just by looking at him you could tell that he was the type of man who'd been a teacher so long he'd been long out of the exercise of practical defense. Remus smiled at me, raising his eyebrows. The funny thing was I could almost picture him being Professor Armbruster in another fifty years, although probably a bit more fit from the sheer exercise of being a werewolf.

"Settle down, everyone," he said sharply, sitting down on the desk in front of us. "Now, I know you've had seven different professors now for this class, but with any luck I'll be the last."

We laughed uneasily. Most of them lasted through the year, but the first one we had lasted just a little over a year because his predecessor died partway through the year before with suspicious and unknown circumstances.

"Now, I want each of you to write down your names, what House you're in, a few things about yourself you think I should know, and why you're taking this class."

Why was I taking the class? The same reason everyone else was taking the class, really: There was a war on. Granted, if I managed to get my job of choice I would be working in some other country, far out of the way of the madness of the battle. But if I couldn't… Well, being a curse-breaker wasn't just something anyone could do. The goblins only hired a handful a year.

We did as he asked, however, and then handed in the parchment. He flipped through the parchment casually. He paused every once in a while when he saw a familiar name, and he smiled at one point.

"Miss Papp," he said, looking up at Leah, "I knew your father when I was much younger. He's a good man."

"Yes, sir," Leah said, blushing a bit.

To my surprise, however, he didn't make any mention of knowing any of the more prominent wizarding names, like James's parents or Sirius's parents.

"I also had the pleasure of meeting your sister," he said. "Bright girl."

I couldn't help but notice Remus perking up at the mention of Susanna, and Alyson and I exchanged amused, significant glances at this sight. And I was pretty sure that Professor Armbruster noted it as well, but he didn't make any mention of it.

The first day was surprisingly relaxed for a N.E.W.T. level class, but Professor Armbruster had said, "We can't really work at the level we need to if we don't all get comfortable with each other. This class is a lot more interactive when it comes to our practical work than most of your other courses."

We literally spent the entire class period talking about Hogwarts and what our lives were like as students. The Marauders pretty much stole the show, as we went about explaining what the Marauders were and what they did.

"So every year," Professor Armbruster asked, fascinated, "you make the giant squid sing to the first years?"

"Every year at the beginning of the second week of school," Sirius affirmed proudly, puffing out his chest.

"Well, I bet you're quite popular around here, with entertaining stunts like that," Professor Armbruster laughed.

"Oh, they are," Alyson chimed in. "They're the most popular people at Hogwarts. Especially Sirius and James."

"Thank you, m'lady," Sirius said with a wink and Alyson rolled her eyes, but smiled. For all the times they drove us so far up the wall we wanted to throw them in the lake and have something swallow them, the Marauders really did make life at Hogwarts particularly interesting, and I couldn't imagine how boring it would be for everyone else once they'd graduated.

"And why especially them, Miss Knightley?" Professor Armbruster asked Alyson.

"Because Sirius is more attractive than should be legal," Leah said with a smirk, "and James is the best thing that's happened to Hogwarts Quidditch since the Cup tournament was invented."

There was laughter throughout the room, although it was then that I noticed the small group of Slytherins in the far corner hissing viciously at all the fuss being made over the Marauders, particularly Severus and Constantin.

Severus was an interesting case. I had tried, in spite of whom he spent his time around and what they spent their time doing, to be nice to him and be understanding because he was Lily's friend and she was typically a good judge of character. But once he had shown his true colors in front of the entire school, verbally attacking Lily, I had no further sympathy for him when the Marauders decided to have their fun.

There was something in the way Severus and Constantin and their cronies were looking at the Gryffindor part of the room that made me uneasy and suddenly I wished we would have just had a normal day of class. If Professor Armbruster wasn't careful, there would be a lot of unnecessary injuries in Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T. classes.

As long as it wasn't Alyson, though, I thought I could make it through the year okay.


	6. Poor Planning: Remus and Mattia

**A/N: Remus's POV**

Tuesday morning was Herbology. Typically, I wasn't thrilled with morning classes in general, especially Herbology, but for some reason thinking of the way Susanna had smiled at me at breakfast when she asked me to pass the toast left me thinking as I made my way down to the greenhouses with James and Sirius that Herbology and mornings were two of the best things in the world.

"Have you asked Leah yet?"

"Not outright, no," Sirius said, as though his not asking wasn't at all problematic in any way.

Did he not understand my desperation, my absolute need to know the truth of the matter?

"What do you mean, no outright? Why not?" I hissed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sirius said sarcastically, "I should have just gone up to one of my best friends and said, 'Hey, Leah, is your baby sister a werewolf? The boy who's madly in love with her but doesn't have the bollocks to do anything about it wants to know.' That would have gone over well."

"Actually, it's Leah," James said reasonably. "It might have."

Sirius just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Look, I'm going to work on her, but you have to be patient, Moony," Sirius said testily. "Things like this don't happen overnight."

"If we're being straightforward," James said with a frown, "why don't you just ask her yourself?"

I blanched at the thought of going up to Susanna and asking her, of all things, if she, like me, turned into a monstrous beast once a month because… what if I was wrong?

But what if I was right? Maybe… maybe if we found out about each other and she realized we were the same… maybe she would kiss me. I shuddered a little bit, imagining the feel of her lips on mine….

"Earth to Remus."

I blinked and realized Leah was snapping her fingers in front of my face.

"Sirius arranged it so that we'd be partners for whatever reason. Get your gloves on before the Snargaluff eats one of your fingers."

I turned and glared at Sirius as I put on my dragonhide gloves. Sirius, of course, pretended he didn't see me. I realized suddenly why Sirius hadn't asked her right off about Susanna: He was trying to back me into a corner where I had to ask. Well, two could play this game and I wasn't going to be the first to crack for once.

"How are you this morning, Leah?" I said casually as I fished around for a set of goggles.

"Sirius said you needed to ask me about something," she said, not even attempting to let me beat around the bush. She and Susanna had that in common, I'd noticed, although Susanna was much more forgiving with me, just as Leah was more forgiving with Sirius….

Oh, no, Susanna and I would end up like Leah and Sirius, the most platonic people on the planet.

My love life was doomed for the rest of time.

"Remus?" she demanded. "Just come out with it. I'm not going to judge you, you know that."

"I had a thought," I said softly, "it's probably stupid."

Leah sighed.

"Remus, you can be accused of many things, but stupidity is most definitely not one of them. Now come on, out with it."

I frowned. What was I able to be accused of, then? Over-tolerance, perhaps, where Sirius and James were concerned, ultra-hesitation where Susanna was concerned…. But sitting around making a list wasn't making progress, I realized, and she was still looking at me, exasperated.

"Susanna's got quite bad health," I remarked casually.

"Yeah, she does," Leah said, frowning. "It's something she's working on with Madam Pomfrey. I try to stay out of it as much as possible because mum and dad ride her about it all the time and she doesn't need another voice telling her what to do. I get injured, Suzy gets sick. Of course, it's easier to pinpoint the cause of mine, it's Quidditch, but for Suzy there are all sorts of contributing factors."

I was so frustrated. She hadn't told me anything I hadn't been hearing for years.

"She likes her steak pretty raw," I said, trying to make it a casual, seemingly unrelated conversation.

Leah cocked her head to the side, considering.

"Yeah, she does, I guess. I don't think that's related to her illness, though, since that would cause stomach problems and she's got more of a respiratory issues going on." Her eyes suddenly grew wide and she said, "Oh. Oh! Remus, no, she's…. You didn't think she…. She doesn't have a furry little problem, Remus, I'm sorry if you got worked up about that…. No, she's really just got some issues with her immune system. Drives Madam Pomfrey up the wall."

I thought I did a decent job of hiding my disappointment as I went about working on pruning the Snargaluff with Leah. She shot me the occasional pitying glance, but I kept my pride and didn't acknowledge her charity-filled expressions and hand-out looks. I would accept none of that.

Susanna would want nothing to do with me. Her passion for werewolf rights was not selfish, as I had so selfishly hoped, but altruistic, and altruism didn't lead to beautiful, blossoming love, but relationships built on pity and attempts to better one's station. But Susanna, angel that she was, couldn't save me.

"Right," I managed to choke out when I realized Leah was still watching me. "Well."

"Remus," she sighed, removing her goggles at the end of class, "it doesn't matter that she's not. She's still head over heels about you. Just talk to her, or kiss her, or whatever feels right. Honestly, you can't go wrong! The one thing I don't recommend is not telling her before she figures it out, though, because if there's one thing she prizes over almost anything, it's trust. She's going to be devastated that you didn't trust her with your furry little secret, but if you tell her out front, that's going to win her over even more."

I wasn't so sure she was right about that, but I liked to think that it would all be okay if I told her, that Sirius and Leah were right. They were probably wrong, though. I prided myself in being right about nearly everything, and I was just sure this was one of those times I was going to be spot on, despite Leah's obvious knowledge of her sister and Sirius's incredible knowledge about relationships and what girls wanted and things like that.

It was an intuition thing.

After Herbology I went to the library to get some reading done in advance. I didn't want to get behind, and if James and Sirius kept up their intense abilities to get us into trouble, I was going to be shorter on time than I wanted to be when push came to shove.

"I don't know, Mattia," sighed a voice that made the skin on my arms prickle. It was Susanna. "I'm trying to decide if I want to look into specific cases of lycanthropy or not. Professor Kettleburn cautioned that it would be difficult to get anyone to share their stories. They tend to be private people."

My heart was racing as I lingered behind a bookshelf, feeling terrible for listening in, but not being able to pull myself away.

"So what do you think?" Mattia asked. "What do you want to do?"

"I mean, it would be so helpful for my work if I could get real sources. Do you think if I promised they could stay anonymous, I'd be more likely to get people to work with me?"

"You'd have to find someone who'd admit it first. And I don't want to seem prejudiced, but a lot of werewolves aren't particularly savory characters. I'm not saying all of them are by any stretch, but you're going to have to be careful."

I turned over in my brain what Leah had said about telling her before someone she figured it out. Especially if she started talking to other werewolves, she'd figure out sooner rather than later about me. Then she would never look at me favorably again. But if I told her... Maybe there would still be a chance. And I wanted so badly to help her with her research, not just because of what it could do for me personally. I wanted her to succeed because she deserved it.

I grit my teeth and tried to think of a way to help her, to tell her, without really telling her. That way, when the time came, at least I could say I tried but I didn't know how. Trying was worth points, wasn't it?

The thought was what counted.

All right, so I knew that's just what people said to make themselves feel better, but to be honest with myself, I was determined to make it work for me, true or not. With a deep breath, I came out from behind the bookshelf.

**A/N: Mattia's POV**

When Remus popped up, I wasn't sure what he was going to do. Part of me wanted to give them some privacy, what with the way Susanna looked at Remus, and the way he so obviously was thinking of her when he saw how low she'd unbuttoned her uniform top.

"Remus!" she said with a smile. "What brings you to the library?"

"Books," he said, then realized how stupid that sounded and blushed. "I, um, couldn't help but overhear your conversation."

"Oh, that's fine!" she said eagerly. "Here, have a seat!"

I nearly snorted when I saw her patting the chair that was practically on top of her, it was so close to her own. Remus looked like he'd rather stick his arm down his throat and like he wanted nothing more than to snog her senseless all at once and I found myself puzzling over how it could be possible for someone to look so contradictory all the time.

Well, not all the time. Just where Susanna was concerned, but that was quite a lot of the time.

Part of me thought I should be off to find someone else to hang out with, make an excuse to leave them alone, but I wanted to see their interaction.

He did sit, finally. Then he nervously said, "So, you're thinking of interviewing a werewolf."

"Yeah, although everybody's telling me it's not a very good idea," Susanna said, smiling at him. "What do you think, Remus? Your opinion is very important to me."

If she hadn't been such a good friend, I actually would have gagged. As it was, I found it difficult to hold in. Honestly, the way those two looked at each other it was a wonder they weren't just forgoing everything and shagging right there on the table.

Remus cleared his throat and said, "Well, it is rather dangerous, but I've got a bit of a solution."

I perked up. Was he actually going to just come out and say he was a werewolf? He'd not actually told anyone, we'd all figured it out. Of course it had been suggested to him to just tell her several times, but I hadn't thought he'd actually do it...

"What's that?" she said happily, leaning in quite close to him.

"I happen to know someone who's a werewolf," he said slowly. "He's a very private person and will want to be anonymous, but I think I could convince him to owl you so that you could interview him by correspondence, if that's agreeable to you."

I wanted to groan. I wanted to smack him across the face. I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him until he just told the poor girl the truth! She wasn't going to care! She wasn't going to judge him! 'I happen to know someone' my foot. Ugh.

"That sounds perfect!" Susanna gushed. The gushing, of course was not about Remus, but about the prospect for her research.

I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him, there. The way to that girl's heart was her research, which was surprising for a Hufflepuff, and Remus's usefulness for her research was about to consume how she looked at him. He must have known that, must have realized, so what was he up to? How badly I wanted to read those letters that were going to go back and forth between them, without Susanna even realizing what she had in her hands. He said he'd have his friend get in touch and then she hurried off to prepare questions.

"You should have told her," I said quietly, after a miniature debate with myself on whether or not to get involved. "Leah's going to be disappointed. How do you expect this to work?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "I don't know. She's smart, she'll figure it out, and then she'll hate me."

"She won't hate you," I groaned, but I was sure he'd heard it a thousand times from one person or another. Even Sirius was trying to get him to man up and just kiss her or something. She was so obviously gagging for it. "She will probably be disappointed when she figures it out, though, because you didn't just tell her."

"I can't, Mattia," Remus sighed. "I just can't. Did you see the way she was looking at me, like I was some kind of hero? She would never look at me like that again, and I just couldn't bear it. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what it's like to have someone look at you like you've saved them but know that if they knew you, _really_ knew you, they'd look at you and feel afraid?"

"Of course I don't," I said softly. "But you're not listening, Remus, you're not listening to any of us." I sighed. "You know what? Never mind. Forget it. Forget I said anything at all and work it out on your own. You're clever, I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually. You're not listening anyway."

And with that uncharacteristic outburst, I stormed away, searching for Alyson or Leah or anyone I could vent at about what had just occurred. The first people I came across, oddly enough, were Leah, Sirius, and Alyson, sitting in a circle around a star chart and pretending to be studying it.

I never did find out what they were actually up to. I was too distracted by my own news to ask at the time and I more or less forgot about it later, but I sat down between Leah and Alyson and said, "You'll never guess what just happened in the library."

"You saw Snivellus trying to shag a book," Sirius guessed.

"No."

"Hypatia Fancourt finally conjured a circus of penguins and had them do a tap dance number?" Alyson said with a small smile.

"Does she actually want to do that, or is that your dream for her?" I laughed. "No, obviously that didn't happen."

"Remus told Suzy about his so-called condition," Leah sighed wistfully.

"You were, unsurprisingly, the closest," I said eagerly. "But you're not going to like what actually happened half so much."

I then proceeded to tell them the conversation I'd been having with Susanna about her research, how Remus joined us and what his supposed solution to her dilemma was.

"He said _what_?" Sirius roared. "A _friend_?"

"Someone he knows, actually, I think is what he said," I corrected, frowning as I tried to remember the specifics of the exchange. "But the basics of the scenario remain the same, I suppose."

"I can't believe he would do that," Leah groaned. "This is going to be a disaster, I just know it. Well, there's no talking him out of it now, not now that he's told her he'll help her. You know she's going to figure it out eventually. She'll figure out it's someone at the school and then there'll be hell to pay when she finds out it's Remus."

We all nodded, staring down at the star chart.

"I just got an idea," Sirius said, a fire in his eye as he looked up at Leah. "You just gave me the best idea!"

"What idea?" the three of us asked nervously. Sirius just shook his head.

"You'll see soon enough," he assured us. "I've got to go! I've got to go share my amazing plan! Thanks Leah, you're amazing! I suspect Remus and Suzy will than you eventually, too, you know, after they've heaped their lavish praises and gratitude on me."

And with a wink, he'd taken off to Merlin knows where with remarkable speed that I'd come to attribute to Marauders on a mission. Very few others moved with such speed and conviction.

"What do you think he's on about?" Leah asked in an uneasy voice.

"I'm not sure," Alyson said slowly. "But I suppose it can't be any worse than Remus's own stupidity."

"You underestimate the ability for the Marauders to compound on each other's stupidity," I said, nervous. "It's practically exponential."

We looked off after him in silence. I was trying to remember exactly what Leah had said, trying to think of what sort of idea it would have given him, but I was coming up empty. We turned back to pretending to study the star chart intently until dinner time.

I decided as we sat there that the Marauders were probably going to be the death of us all. Okay, maybe not literally, but at least in the sense that they sort of had a way of bringing down all those around them in their efforts to achieve whatever half-baked ideas they'd come up with. I knew I didn't want to be on the ship when it sank, but I also knew my friends weren't getting off the ship any time soon, so the least I could do, I mused, was make sure all the lifeboats were working properly.


	7. Having and Not: BetsySusanna

**A/N: Betsy's POV**

I spent the first evening back reading the sections of my Arithmancy professor had assigned. I hated Arithmancy. Iris and I were in it together, more or less alone, and all I ever wanted to do was that silly class and make it disappear.

Unfortunately, they never taught us how to make classes disappear, and a lot of careers required Arithmancy. I figured since Brigitta wasn't taking it, it was sort of my duty to do so.

Big mistake, obviously, as I realized that the sections assigned were not only the usual brand of dull, but a hundred and fifty pages... each!

"Hey, McNeil," said the voice of Sirius Black, and I nearly shivered with excitement as he sat down in the chair next to mine. "What are you working on?"

"Arithmancy," I sighed, rubbing my temples.

He wrinkled his nose.

"Sounds terrible."

"Oh, it is," I admitted, laughing. "How was your day?"

"Interesting," Sirius muttered, leaning over my other books and reading the titles. "Mmm, Astronomy. Now that's a class!"

"It's all right," I shrugged.

Of course, it was one of my best classes. I topped the year in Astronomy every year. I just found it fascinating, but I knew Sirius only took it because he was naturally good at it. He was far from topping his year in it. In fact, if I remembered correctly, Constantin Hornick was top of seventh year Astronomy, so it was a bit of a sore subject. Recalling this, I switched subjects quickly.

"Did you talk to Remus?" I said. "I mean, have you talked him into snogging Suzy silly yet?"

"No," Sirius sighed. "But he does have a plan, of sorts. I don't know how it will work, but I had to help dig him out of a hole, so to speak, so it was the best I could do."

I wanted to ask what the plan was, but the way Sirius had finished his sentence, the tone he'd used, had a finality about it and I knew I wouldn't get any more out of him. I was trying to think of something else to say when I nearly jumped to feel his hand on my knee. He grinned at the surprised, flushed look on my face.

"Are you busy tomorrow?" he whispered.

"Um, when?" I asked, trying to remember what my schedule looked like.

"After dinner," he said softly.

"Uh, well, I'll probably have homework," I said slowly, frowning. "I've got McGonagall tomorrow."

"I'll do it for you," he said, brushing off my nerves. "You know I'm a natural with Transfiguration. I could have it done in no time at all, leaving you free."

"Free for what?" I said breathlessly, wishing I had Susanna's flirtation experience. She's spent years honing her craft whereas I felt like a bumbling idiot. She and Sirius had flirted with such grace and elegance and I felt like I was behaving like a fool.

"It's a surprise," he said with a roguish grin. "So, are you interested?"

Was I? What sort of girl did he think I was? Of course I was interested! I nodded and his grin grew a bit.

"Meet me in the common room after dinner, then," he whispered. "I promise we'll have a good time."

I felt my stomach twist excitedly, but he lifted his hand from my knee and went his own way after that, as though he hadn't even stopped to chat. My heart was racing, I realized, and I looked back down at my Arithmancy text, but nothing was really making sense. In all the excitement, the words had begun to blur together and I knew I wouldn't be getting any more homework done that night.

Shifting my papers and books so that I could shove them into my bag, I called it a night, heading upstairs and barely changing into my nightgown before falling into bed and sleeping.

Day two of class was... stressful, to say the least. Between McGonagall and Flitwick and skiving off Muggle Studies, I had too many things to do and not enough time to do them all. I wanted to get my Arithmancy reading and my Astronomy homework done by dinner. Charms were fairly basic and Sirius had promised to do Transfiguration, which I planned to hold him to.

As soon as I got to dinner and sat down with Susanna, Iris, and Brigitta, I could hardly contain my excitement.

"What's got you all worked up?" Iris asked, frowning. "Have you seen that Transfiguration assignment?"

"Sirius is doing it for me," I blurted out, covering my mouth when I realized the words had come out. I blushed furiously and Susanna raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm," she teased. "Sirius doesn't even like doing is _own_ homework. What's got him doing yours, Betsy?"

"Uh, he's got some surprise for me," I said softly, "so he said he would."

There was much gossiping and speculation once I'd let it out as to what the surprise would be. Brigitta even helped me pick out what to wear as we rushed back before the Marauders had finished eating. As we walked by them, Sirius winked at me and I felt my face flush furiously.

"Merlin, Betsy!" Brigitta giggled. "You're finally getting his attention!"

Yeah, I had his attention, I thought sadly, but could I keep it? Nobody ever managed that. The only people who ever managed to keep his attention were his friends, so logic said it would be best to be friends. But how could anyone just be friends with Sirius Black, if given the chance, however brief, at something more.

My hands shook as I made my way down to the common room wearing Brigitta's plum-colored sweater and saw Sirius Black standing by the fireplace, his shaggy black hair falling gracefully into his face. I bit my lip, a habit I'd gotten from being around Susanna, who chewed at hers regularly, and made my way down to Sirius, who looked up at me and grinned.

"Hey, beautiful," he said, holding out his hand. "Ready?"

"I don't know," I teased. "What are we doing?"

"Now, now, darling," he whispered, leading me out of the common room, "that would definitely spoil the surprise. I never knew you were so impatient."

I pouted, a bit annoyed at being called impatient. He seemed to find some sort of joy in my pouting, however, smirking triumphantly when he saw it, so I just rolled my eyes and let him lead me away down the corridor, wondering if he could hear the racing of my pounding heart. It seemed so loud to me that it would have been stranger in my mind if he couldn't.

We stopped by the statue of the one-eyed witch and he tapped the hump, muttering something I couldn't make out. I gasped as a slide appeared, opening up to a passageway.

"Ladies first," he whispered in my ear, helping me get into the slide and then following me in and lighting his wand. When we could see a little ways down the passage, his fingers laced in mine and he led me down the passage in silence and my heart was pounding even harder than before.

"So where does this lead?" I asked.

"Hogsmeade," he said casually and cryptically. He managed to tell me what I'd asked and nothing at all, all at once. He was far too good at that sort of thing.

"Right," I sighed, pulling on his arm teasingly. "Where in Hogsmeade?"

"You'll just have to wait and see, won't you, sweetheart?" he whispered in my ear, causing me to shiver at how incredibly sexy his voice could be. He just knew it, too! He knew how enticing he could be, how almost illegally attractive he was... Merlin, I could go on forever.

We finally climbed the stairs at the end of the tunnel and Sirius pulled me up through a trap door in some kind of cellar. I breathed in deeply, finding my nose greeted with the undeniably wonderful scent of sweets.

"Honeydukes," I whispered happily.

"Yeah," he said, grinning as he closed the trapdoor. "C'mon, love, let's get out of here. Can't linger too long in the storerooms."

"Where are we going?" I hissed, letting him lead me quickly and quietly out through the shop and into the High Street of Hogsmeade. It was a bit chilly, but he wrapped an arm around me and I warmed up just from my blush alone.

"I've got us a room at The Three Broomsticks, if you want to go," he said, grinning, obviously proud of himself.

If I had thought that my heart couldn't pound any harder, I was wrong. In that moment, it absolutely exploded with anxiety, excitement, fear... Sirius wanted to sleep with me. Sure, he was delicious, he was exactly what I wanted, but even though there was nothing I wanted more than to say yes, how was I supposed to hold onto him when he so easily slipped from one thing to the next? Still, I had some confidence in my abilities and the excitement in his gray eyes was intoxicating.

"All right," I said, letting him lead the way.

**A/N: Susanna**

Whatever Sirius and Betsy did together, they spent all night out doing it, according to Brigitta, who was in more than just a little bit of a gossiping mood when she showed up at breakfast and sat down with Iris and me.

"She's still not back," were the first words out of Brigitta's excited mouth. "Neither of them are back yet, according to James, who I ran into on my way down here."

"Do you know what this means?" I hissed.

"That Betsy slept with Sirius Black?" Iris said, amused. "Yeah, we _all_ know what this means. The question is where's it going to lead? She really is crazy about him, and not just because he's attractive. She's not a crazed fan girl or something."

"No, I know," I said sadly, frowning as I pilled fried potatoes onto my plate. "I suppose I ought to have a talk with Sirius about it. Remind me to do it and swear you won't tell her and all will be fine."

There was a general consensus of not saying a word to Betsy and getting something out of Sirius and at that moment, an owl dropped down on the table in front of me and I recognized it as a school owl.

"What's that?" Brigitta asked eagerly as I took the letter off its leg.

"This, darling, is a letter," I told her condescendingly, smirking as I waved the letter in front of her cheekily. She stuck her tongue out at me and I opened the letter carefully, hoping it was the correspondence Remus had promised from the werewolf he knew.

I unfolded the parchment and began to read:

_Susanna,_

_ Remus has told me that you are interested in interviewing someone suffering lycanthropy. As he told you, I am a lycanthrope, and I would be able to be interviewed by letter, anonymously, if that is agreeable and suitable for your purposes._

_ As you could probably tell from the owl, I'm a Hogwarts student. That is part of why the secrecy is so important, if you understand. Before you bother asking, we have met, although I don't think you've ever really seen me, not like I've seen you. I can't help but be a little bit excited, having an excuse to write the most beautiful girl at Hogwarts._

_ I'm sure you have a lot of questions and I want you to know that I'd be more than happy to answer questions for as long as you need me to, as many as you'd like. So that you can get letters to me, I ask that you leave them in prefect's bath before midnight on any given night, putting it in the space behind the mermaid portrait (it's small, but I'm sure you can find it)._

_ I'm looking forward to your first letter._

_ Yours,_

_ J_

My eyes widened as I reread the letter. This mystery boy... He thought I was the most beautiful girl at Hogwarts? Surely not, after all, nearly everyone agreed that Lily Evans was far more beautiful than I was. I thought Brigitta was prettier, too, but I was jealous of her exotic looks, to be sure.

The prettiest girl at Hogwarts... Me?

But he didn't say prettiest, even... he said most beautiful, which in a way even more was flattering. A lot of boys said a girl was pretty, but beautiful, that was a word that meant something.

He couldn't really mean me... Could he?

"What is it?" Iris asked. "What does it say?"

"Ah, it's just somebody I'm interviewing for my research," I said quickly. For some reason, I didn't want anyone else to see the letter, to know anything about the letter-writer, but me. At the same time, I felt a burning desire to find out more about him.

"Which essay?"

"Creatures," I said quickly. "I think I'm going to spend my free period writing a reply. You guys go enjoy the sunshine. I'll catch up when I've finished. All right?"

They shrugged and agreed and I just saw Betsy walking in when I was hurrying back down to the Hufflepuff common room to write a reply.

I didn't know what to say, my quill lingering over the parchment. How did I address this mystery werewolf? Which questions did I ask first?

But I reminded myself that there was no point acting silly because a boy said I was beautiful. Sirius had said as much nearly daily when we were flirting and I didn't act a fool. Granted, I knew he didn't mean a word of it then, but I didn't know that this boy did mean it. I decided to be as business-like as possible, to calm myself before writing a word, and take time to organize my thoughts.

This was a professional interaction, I told myself, before picking up my quill and writing a letter asking him about his condition, when he became a lycanthrope, and how his parents had dealt with the issue. It was a good start, starting at the beginning. From there I could think of how to work in the other questions and concerns I had, and maybe even think up a few more based off his responses. When I'd finished my reply, I carefully folded it and set the letter from him in my diary, not wanting to lose it, I told myself.

I made a quick stop at the prefect's bath, which I actually hadn't gone into yet, hurrying around to the portrait of the mermaid, feeling beneath it for some way to get the letter into the space behind it.

I gasped as I accidentally flipped some sort of trigger and the portrait swung forward to reveal a small spot behind it in the wall where one of the bricks had been taken out. I almost laughed to myself, thinking how the letter-writer had discovered something worthy of the Marauders.

Quickly placing the letter and setting the portrait back to where it out to go, I hurried away down through the corridors and staircases of the castle, rushing out onto the lawn, ready to savor one of the last free periods to be marked with sunshine until the end of the last term. Betsy, Brigitta, and Iris were sitting in a circle discussing eagerly what I could only guess must be Betsy's night with Sirius.

That was, of course, exactly what they were discussing.

"He took her to Hogsmeade," Brigitta said eagerly as I sat down with them.

"You mean he took her to a room at the inn," I said, winking.

Sirius and I, during our flirtation, had had a few secret make-out sessions, but I'd never let him take me to a room anywhere. It was a line in our game that I hadn't wanted to cross.

Betsy, though, Betsy was different. She really cared about him, and I thought that after I had a chat with him he'd respect her. If he didn't... Well, he had Leah and me to answer to, and I didn't think he relished that thought.

Betsy blushed a bit and looked down at her worn-out shoes she so adored. I couldn't stick my nose up at that. In my punk rock phase, I'd worn shoes until they absolutely wouldn't stay on my feet anymore. Finally she said, "Yeah, he did."

Brigitta and Iris made teasing noises like catcalls and tickled Betsy, but I didn't bother. I just smiled at her. If that's what she wanted, then she should go for it, absolutely. But it didn't stop me from worrying about her, just a little bit. Sirius meant well, but he didn't tend to think before he acted.

And as Betsy told us in not-too-spectacular detail about her 'magical' night with Sirius Black, my mind drifted to the words of the letter writer, my anonymous lycanthrope.

The most beautiful girl at Hogwarts... He was wrong about that. In that moment, I was sure in that moment that Betsy was the most beautiful girl at Hogwarts, if only because she was absolutely glowing and radiant, the biggest smile I'd ever seen.

She'd fallen in love with Sirius Black and I almost found that I envied her. There was a chance Sirius didn't love her back, but she would know what it felt like to hold him, just for a little while. But I was beginning to think that I'd never get to know what it would be like to have Remus hold me. Maybe it wouldn't matter, I told myself. Maybe I would find somebody else. The Letter Writer thought I was beautiful, after all.

But then I thought about Remus and his beautiful amber eyes and I started yanking up handfuls of grass to keep from disrupting Betsy's tale of triumph with my own despair.

Remus was perfect. I would never have that moment of triumph.


	8. Sing Now While You Can: Leah and Sirius

**A/N: Leah's POV**

Constantin seemed to think he deserved all of my time, and while I would have liked to have given him more of it, it just wasn't possible. Sirius had to have some of my time, even with his blossoming whatever-it-was with Betsy. Susanna required a fair amount of my time with her thoughts on the letters she was getting from the mystery werewolf who was _really_ Remus pretending to be someone else and a secret admirer, thanks to what Sirius thought was his brilliant idea. I was trying to keep my world from going up in flames. Constantin only had so much claim on my time.

I paced the area of the dungeons where he was supposed to meet me, though, and he was running late.

"Oh, look, it's Sirius Black's pet," said a voice that made my blood curdle.

I turned to find Avery, Macnair, and Mulciber heading my direction. Where was Constantin? Where was anyone would could help me?

"What's the matter?" Avery teased. "Don't want to play?"

"Not particularly," I sneered, trying to channel my inner Marauder, trying to be like my sister. I wasn't going to let myself be bullied by a bunch of wannabe Death Eaters.

Apparently I wasn't as intimidating and self-assured as I thought I was, though, because Avery just kept coming.

"Well, you ought to know by now, Papp," he snarled, "that I really don't care what you want. Get on your knees."

"No," I said, although I was very sure that my voice was shaking. I wasn't sure what spell he was planning on practicing on me, but I knew it wasn't going to be fun or harmless. "No, I won't."

"Mulciber," Avery said with a smirk, "make her."

Mulciber pulled out his wand and I knew from the incident with Mary MacDonald that his specialty, the only spell he was ever known to pull off properly, was the Imperius Curse. I wasn't sure how one fought the curse, although we were told it was possible. Susanna had said that if anyone could do it, it would be me, as I was usually bull-headed enough to ignore the suggestions of others, but I wasn't sure my bull-headedness could withstand the Imperius Curse.

On the other hand, I thought as he raised his wand, I didn't seem to have a whole lot of options other than trying out my bull-headedness.

"What's going on here?" said the voice of Constantin from down the hall a ways, the sound of his words echoing off the walls causing Mulciber to jump slightly, to hesitate in his delivering the incantation.

"Ah, glad you could join us, Hornick," Avery said savagely. "We found Papp here wandering around alone, thought we'd have a bit of fun, teach her not to encroach on our territory."

"Bad idea," Constantin said smoothly. "This isn't the right time, Avery. Slughorn's on his way in this direction, could be here any minute. I'll escort Papp back to her own territory and ensure that she doesn't, oh, have a slip of the tongue."

Avery obviously didn't like the idea, but he wasn't exactly keen to end up in detention or expelled for what he'd been about to do to a fellow student, or rather, have a fellow student do to a fellow student, so he gathered up his cronies and scrammed, giving me a threatening look as he left.

"Imperius Curse," I said softly as Constantin led me off to the nearest empty room and warded us from any unwanted visitors. "They were about to use an Unforgivable Curse on me."

"You don't know that," Constantin said smoothly, moving in to kiss me, but I pulled back, still very shaken and not feeling altogether in the mood to be physical with him.

"You know as well as I do that that's exactly what they would have done," I hissed. "Constantin, you can't just pretend and twist things with me. You're forgetting that I'm best friends with the Marauders. I know all of the dirty secrets of the Death Eater wannabes. I don't know what all Avery would have had me do, but I know it wouldn't have been pleasant, and if you were half the man I'd like to think you are, you'd be outraged!"

"Don't you say that to me!" Constantin snapped. "Don't you compare what I do for you to those clowns! I just got you out of there, didn't I? You're fine, so let's not dwell on it, Leah. I don't want to fight with you and I don't want to talk about your friends or my friends or anything other than how beautiful you look..."

I frowned, trying to stay mad at him, but it was so hard when he said such sweet things. Sure, he was still claiming the people who had almost done illegal magic on me as his friends, but he wasn't making horrible remarks about my bringing up Sirius. That was progress of its own kind, and I decided I could live with it as he pressed his lips to mine, pressing his body against mine.

Who was I to argue? He had just saved me, after all, and I did owe him that much, to let him kiss me, to run his hands up the backs of my thighs slowly.

And he hadn't insulted Sirius, I realized. Suddenly, it popped into my mind that something must be wrong. Something was on his mind, or he wanted something from me, or he wouldn't have bothered to not insult Sirius. It was something like his primary joy in life, attempting to shred Sirius apart with words.

So I pulled out of the kiss.

"What are you after?" I asked. "What are you trying to do?"

He frowned slightly.

"What are you talking about, love?"

"You didn't take the bait," I pointed out. "You left it alone when I mentioned Sirius. I mean, you called them clowns, but that's nothing. What are you after?"

Constatin laughed.

"Do you really think so little of me, Leah, that I would twist things just to get something from you?"

Would he do it? Probably. But my jumping to that conclusion... Was it thinking little of him? Maybe. The way he'd said it made me feel a bit guilty for jumping to conclusions. He was right, I did that too much, and did it matter if I was usually right or did it matter that I wasn't giving him the benefit of the doubt?

"Sorry," I sighed. "I guess I wasn't really thinking of it that way. But you know what I mean."

"No, I don't think I do," he said, suddenly serious. "What are you trying to say?"

"Nobody does something for nothing, Constantin," I said, annoyed. "Suzy's the perfect example. I'm not sure she's got an altruistic bone in her body. Okay, well, Mattia does a lot for nothing, and Remus, but they're pretty much it. Even Lily Evans doesn't do things if she's not getting _something_ out of it. You _hate_ my friends, and I'm sure that hasn't changed any time recently, so what do you want? What are you up to?"

Whatever it was, though, I wasn't about to find out any time soon. He just pouted at me and said, "Maybe I'm just feeling altruistic today, Leah. I wish you wouldn't paint me with the same brush as all your Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, and you know perfectly well there is no comparison between your sister and me. Come on, let's talk about something else."

So we did. We spent hours kissing and talking about Ancient Runes, which he loved to hear me theorize about. It was his favorite conversation, which was really more of a monologue of me going off on the things Suzy and I had discussed about Runes, discoveries we'd made, theories we'd debated.

Constantin didn't care much about Ancient Runes, not like Remus seemed to, and he certainly didn't care at all about my sister, but he liked to listen to me talk about the topic I knew the most about. He said it made me sound like a genius.

The key to that, of course, was that as much time as I devoted to Ancient Runes, one would think I'd outdo my sister, who spent half her life studying creature issues, but she still edged me out with her natural ability.

It wasn't that I didn't have natural ability, but Susanna was basically born to study Runes. She hardly had to study at all to understand everything under the umbrella of NEWT level, and when she did study she got into highly complex issues. I hadn't had to really study OWLs, but I did have to study NEWT-level Runes, although nowhere near what my fellow classmates needed.

"So I'll see you next week?" Constantin asked, kissing my cheek gently as we reached the door that led to the hallway and pretending we didn't like each other at all.

"Maybe," I said slowly, tentatively.

He just gave a tight nod. Before I could even say that I'd try, which he knew already, he was gone.

/-/

**A/N: Sirius's POV**

I paced the dormitory as Remus wrote the letter in reply to Susanna. She'd become increasingly confiding in her replies to him, and while they always contained plenty about the research, the interview that was going on as the point of the letters, the latter half had grown increasingly into the sort of love letters I'd hoped would develop, although she was sufficiently hesitant for an impressionable girl who didn't really knew who she was conversing with.

In a way, I felt irrationally jealous of Remus, who could get Susanna's love and affection so easily both in real life and as an anonymous admirer she only contacted in letters. It wasn't that I was interested in her in that way. She was too much like Leah, there was too much friendship for us to really even try to have a relationship, but even when we flirted, even when I would snog her in quiet, discrete parts of the castle just to find out what her lips tasted like, just to see how much I could wind her up, she never fell for me.

She was the only girl I'd even flirted with who hadn't fallen for my charms. That stung a bit, but I would get over it. I had Betsy.

I winced slightly, thinking about the talk Susanna had given me about Betsy, actually. She warned me that Betsy was really in love with me, not like the silly fan girls I toyed with, and if I hurt her, Susanna would actually castrate me. She wasn't just being rhetorical, either. She meant it. I believed her, and I believed Leah would walk me right into the trap.

How did I feel about Betsy? I'd not really thought about it. She was fun, she was flirtatious, she was pretty... She was her own person, which was incredibly attractive. I was so used to being pursued by girls who were trying to turn themselves into a carbon copy of what they thought I wanted instead of just being themselves, but Betsy hadn't changed since I took her to Hogsmeade and I was relieved and thrilled. But love? Commitment? That was all a bit fast for my taste, so I just took deep breaths and considered, snogging Betsy here and there. I wasn't about to sleep with her again until I knew Susanna wouldn't be coming for my testicles in the night.

I saw her in my dreams most nights, though, reliving that one night when I held her in my arms, the way she cried out my name, the beautiful sounds she made as we made love...

I blinked and realized that it really was so different with Betsy than it had ever been with the any of the other girls. Flirting with Susanna had been a challenge. Messing around with the fan girls was just fun. But Betsy... we'd made love and it felt so... perfect.

Maybe Susanna was right. Maybe I should settle down a bit. Suddenly, it didn't seem such a horrible idea as it had.

"How's the letter coming?" I asked, trying to think of how to get Betsy alone and tell her what I'd decided, maybe even find some way to hear her moan my name again like she had that night before curfew.

"Slowly," Remus sighed. "Has she asked you about it yet?"

"Every day," I replied with a smirk. "I told her it wasn't my secret to tell and she said that if she weren't so loyal to Betsy she would have found creative ways to get it out of me."

I instantly regretting saying that bit out loud as Remus looked up at me like a kicked puppy dog. She'd been kidding of course, at least I hoped she had, but Remus wouldn't see it that way. He was constantly trying to convince himself and everyone around him that she would be better with someone else, that she was going to fall in love with someone else.

"Remus, it was a joke," I said urgently.

"I know," he muttered bitterly, "but it still hurts. Look, I'll take this letter to the spot. I'd like to be alone when I finish this one."

"You sure?" I pressed.

He nodded, and I decided that it would be better to do as he asked then to turn what was really nothing into a full-fledged fight by not letting it go, even if he did have the wrong idea. After all, Remus usually had the wrong idea when it came to Susanna Papp.

As fate would have it, I ran right into Betsy as I was heading down through the common room.

She looked up at me and blushed slightly and I couldn't help but think how beautiful she looked when she turned that shade of pink, and then I remembered how the flush of her skin reached all the way down to the top of her breasts when she was caught up in sexual passion and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from moaning at the thought of how gorgeous she looked like that, sitting down across from her at the little table she was studying at.

"That was Brigitta's spot," she teased.

"I'll be here briefly," I teased back. "You can give Yoshida my apologies if the seat's too warm."

Betsy laughed.

"Why did you bother sitting down if you're not going to stay?" she asked, setting down her quill and rubbing her eyes. I wanted to kiss her eyes. Maybe she would feel less tired, less strained.

But I was being silly and lovey-dovey, like Remus was when he talked about Susanna, or James when he talked about Evans.

"Do you want to go on a date?" I asked. "Like, a real one. I don't know, Hogsmeade or something. Whatever you'd like."

Betsy seemed pleased, surprised, and excited, but we didn't have time to dwell on it because Susanna and Leah came in, speaking softly to each other, urgently, and my sensitive ears picked up enough to piece together that Leah had not only been attacked by Slytherins, but that she'd then gone off and snogged Constantin Hornick her... boyfriend?

"Excuse me?" I growled, touching Betsy's hand as I got up to let her know I didn't mean to slight her, and then heading over to Leah and Susanna, who looked up at me with wide, scared eyes. "I think it sounds like you and I need to have a talk, Papps."

The girls nodded, both looking rather nervous and guilty, and I led them up to the dormitory where Remus was sealing the letter he'd been writing to Susanna. He looked up at us with a terrified look and shoved the letter under his pillow quickly. She frowned at him.

"What was that?" she asked.

"N-nothing," he gasped. "L-letter to my mum. What's going on?"

She thought nothing of it and sat down at the foot of his bed and wrinkled her nose.

"Don't ask me, I got dragged into this mess against my will. It has nothing to do with me. Ask Leah."

So I did.

"Um, so I'm sort of... secretly dating Constantin Hornick," Leah said sheepishly.

"_What?_" Remus and I chorused, horrified.

"I'm going to kill him," I growled, getting up in huff. "I'm going to rip out his fucking throat."

"You're going to sit down and behave like a civil human being, Sirius," Susanna said in her commanding voice, and I turned to glare at her.

"Leah is not allowed to date a snake!" he hissed. "Leah is-"

"A big girl, Sirius, and not yours to order around!" Susanna shrieked. "Contrary to popular belief, Sirius, you don't own the castle!"

"You could have told us," Remus said softly. "I'm upset that you didn't trust me enough to tell me, Leah."

"I didn't say anything because I knew Sirius was going to react like an idiot!" Leah growled. "And you're not allowed to wish about anything in regards to my love life, Remus, when you're so foolish about your own!"

I blinked at her, shocked that she'd come out so boldly like that and practically pointed out Remus's obsession with Susanna right in front of her, but Susanna didn't seem to notice.

"What do you want me to do about the other Slytherins?" I asked tersely, deciding that we could always deal with the Hornick issue later, since we weren't making any ground at that moment. There was still the matter of her being attacked by Avery and his cronies.

"Nothing," Remus said firmly. "You're going to do nothing about them because we can't afford to lose any more house points over you and your thirst for justice, Sirius."

"Absolutely," Susanna said with a smirk. "But Hufflepuff has a few to spare."

We all blinked at her.

"Suzy," Leah said slowly.

"Relax, Leah," Susanna said with a sigh, her voice dripping with condescension. "You know I don't fight my own battles."

Oh, we all knew that. We knew it well. My only concern was who would end up being the poor sod she made fight in her place this time.


	9. Fear: Remus

**A/N: Remus POV**

The news that Leah had been secretly dating a Slytherin for a while threw the Marauders for a loop. I was upset that she hadn't trust me enough to tell me, especially when she knew my secret, but I could understand that she didn't want James and Sirius to know.

At the same time, I couldn't help but be a little happy that Susanna seemed to want to discuss how she felt about the changes that everyone knowing brought. And she seemed to want to discuss it with me.

In letter form, of course. All of our deepest conversations were done with me anonymous in letters.

_Dear J,_

_ I don't know if Remus told you... No, he didn't. He keeps secrets with the best. You know that. Well, anyway, I suppose since all of Gryffindor practically knows it won't hurt to tell you, but you need to keep this quiet for me. My sister would be upset if she knew I was telling you this, but I trust you. You know the importance of keeping secrets._

_ My sister's dating a Slytherin._

_ I didn't mind when no one knew but me and our girl friends. But now that the boys know, everything's different. They won't stop bothering Leah about it, reminding us how terrible the Slytherins have been, including Constantin's friends the other day, who were going to torture Leah before he tricked them out of it._

_ They're right, of course. It was so easy to ignore when we were keeping it from Sirius because he would overreact, but now it doesn't feel like an overreaction. It feels like he works really hard to protect us from the people who have all but become Death Eaters and we willfully made it harder for him and the boys to do._

_ I don't want to make things difficult for Sirius, but at the same time, shouldn't Leah be happy? Maybe she's right, maybe I should be happy that I don't have the complications of a relationship._

_ Anyway, on the full moon, is it lonely? Or do you really have any concept of that in wolf form?_

_ Love,_

_ Suzy_

The most annoying thing about the letter had been Sirius's reading it.

"Ha!" Sirius cried. "Proof that she thinks I'm right! I need to show this to Leah!"

"No, you'll do no such thing," James snapped. "Remember, she thinks she's writing these letters to someone in the school she doesn't even really know on confidence, and not one of us?"

Sirius hadn't liked being told he couldn't use the evidence that Susanna agreed with him that Leah was walking on thin ice with Constantin. But he agreed to keep quiet about it and let Remus answer the letter in his own way with his own words and without their approval.

_Beautiful Susanna,_

_ I'm sorry that this has been difficult. It sounds like quite a dilemma. If you're worried about your sister's safety, you should tell her so. If there's anyone she will listen to, it's you. I don't have any siblings, but I imagine that if I did I would appreciate their input on something so important, especially if they make it plain that they're doing it because they care._

_ You're right, Sirius cares about you. They all do. This guy isn't Leah's last shot for happiness or anything like that, and Sirius and the other Marauders sincerely care about your safety. That might be something to bring up. It's not the first time you've been attacked by Slytherins._

_ The full moon can be very lonely. It's not safe to have human company, obviously. I'm not fully aware of my human emotions while I'm transformed, but I am more likely to be aggressive and destructive toward both my surroundings and myself. Don't worry, though. I'm fine. I don't want you to worry about me._

_ I saw that yellow dress you wore yesterday. It looked amazing on you. You should wear it more often. Although I have to admit that it was a bit frustrating to notice that every other boy in Hogwarts seemed to appreciate the dress as well. Maybe it would be better if you only wore it when you were around the Gryffindors._

_ Love always,_

_ J_

I read over the letter nervously before gritting my teeth and deciding not to rewrite it. I'd done too many rewrites and it was time I started saying what I meant instead of filtering it through Sirius and James to try to get just the right amount of hints about who I was and how badly I wanted her.

With care I went to the place we'd been exchanging the notes and found, to my surprise, that there was a small slip of parchment there when I slipped my letter behind the portrait. With a frown, I slid the parchment into my pocket and hurried away, worried I'd be caught there, delivering the letter.

I'd forgotten all about it when I reached the common room and found Sirius in a fight with Leah.

"It's for your own good!" he was roaring at her.

"You can't tell me what to do, Sirius," she insisted stubbornly. "You're not my father!"

Sirius was puffing up, ready to explode all over again, but I hurried forward with Lily, who was sitting over to the side.

"Hang on a moment," I said quickly, pushing myself between them, which was difficult as they were both quite strong. "What exactly is the argument here?"

"She won't stop seeing that snake!" Sirius growled, looking he was ready to start beating Leah up for her stubborn decision.

"He won't stop telling me what to do!" Leah shrieked, looking about ready to claw out Sirius's eyes if she had half a chance.

"They've been at it for about twenty minutes strong," Lily huffed, annoyed. "Look, Leah, why don't you calm down, go for a walk-"

"Not by herself, she's not!" Sirius roared.

"I'll go with her," Betsy said suddenly from the corner. "C'mon, we can go see Suzy. I've been meaning to tell her something."

Sirius's mouth flopped open and closed, confused. It seemed to me that he was trying to decide whether or not he thought that Betsy being wandering around without his personal protection would be okay, even if she was with Leah.

"Tell you what," I interjected. "I'll go with you two. I could use a stretch of the legs myself."

"Weren't you just walking?" Leah asked, frowning.

"Ah, library," I muttered, hoping I wasn't blushing at my own lie. "Come on, let's go. Betsy said she had some news to impart."

Sirius was still acting dazed and confused when I led the girls out of the portrait hole and down the stairs a bit.

"I apologize for Sirius, Leah," I said softly when we'd reached the first set of stairs. "You know how he can be."

"Pigheaded," Leah spat.

"Something like that," I replied, an amuse smile playing at my lips. "Anyway, you know he's only doing it because he cares about you and worries about you."

"He shouldn't worry," Leah said firmly, although she'd softened ever-so-slightly. "I can take care of myself."

"None of us can," Betsy said softly. "There's a war on. That's why Sirius doesn't like me going off without him or one of the Marauders. It's why they don't go anywhere alone, either. The war's not just for the adults, Leah. You know as well as any of us that there are small battles inside these walls, too."

Mary's attack our fifth year. That was what she was referring to, I knew it. Mulciber had used the Imperius Curse and probably the Cruciatus, although they'd never been able to prove that bit. The strange part to everyone was why he hadn't been expelled for it.

Dumbledore could be too forgiving, but I couldn't judge. Not many men would have let a werewolf attend Hogwarts.

Still, if anyone was threatening Susanna's safety... I could feel the anger boiling up inside of me as we walked.

We stopped near the kitchens and I frowned.

"What are we waiting for?"

"Ah, we don't actually know where the Hufflepuff entrance is," Betsy said. "They keep it well hidden. And nobody but Hufflepuffs actually know how to get in and, well, you know how loyal they all are. Even Suzy's tight-lipped about it. We wait for another Hufflepuff to come along and ask them to send her to us. They usually do happily."

Somehow, I found this news to be strange, but I knew that the Marauders had never been in the Hufflepuff common room. If the Marauders hadn't been there, we had said at one point, no one in our era had been there.

Of course, we recognized that there were secrets of the castle that had lain dormant for centuries, perhaps millennia, and that someone had accessed them at some point, but we were the modern explorers to tame the halls of Hogwarts.

Hufflepuffs had been in their common room, obviously, so perhaps it didn't really count by those rules, but before I had a chance to really sort it out in my head, Hufflepuff prefect Hypatia Fancourt had come along, frowning at us.

"I take it you're looking for your sister, Papp?" she said. "I'll send her out as soon as I see her."

"Thanks," Leah said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, motioning for me to do the same as Betsy followed her.

I sat, watching Hypatia as she left.

"I take it you see her often?" I asked. "Hypatia, I mean. She knew just what you wanted."

"It's her a lot of the time," Leah said with a shrug. "I don't know why."

"I think she's got a secret lover or something," Betsy said with a smirk Sirius would have been proud of. "It would explain why she's leaving the common room or coming back to it so often at such weird hours."

Leah stiffened at the mention of secret lovers, and I sighed. It was going to be awkward and difficult for a while, so it was best to just address it head-on.

"Look, Leah," I said gently, "you know Sirius cares about you a lot, right?"

She snorted.

"He's got a funny way of showing it," Leah snarled.

"He does," Betsy whispered. "The other day, when he thought I was asleep, he was telling the boys how scared he is that something's going to happen to you or Suzy and he's not going to be able to help you. He thinks he must have done something wrong, that you would put yourself in danger in spite of him. He thinks you're mad at him. He was crying, Leah. I'd never seen him cry before."

"I have," Remus said softly. "A few times. It was all over really bad stuff."

Things being so bad that he had to run away from home, the pain of his first partial Animagus transformation, and that time when I caught him crying by himself because Leah had fallen off her broom and he thought she was going to die and that it was his fault because he wasn't able to catch her before she hit the ground.

But I didn't say any of that out loud. Sirius wouldn't thank me for it, just as I knew he wouldn't thank Betsy for telling Leah about his crying over his fear for the Papp sister's well-being, although he didn't know she'd heard it. I decided I wouldn't mention it, just in case it became my responsibility down the road somehow, for not knowing she wasn't awake.

Sirius could be completely absurd about things like that sometimes.

We sat in silence for several moments, my mind wandering from topic to topic, always coming back to Susanna's pretty smile, and I'd just put my hand in my pocket, remembering the note, but the moment I realized it was there and was about to take it out to read, I heard a familiar, beautiful laugh sounding down the hall from us.

"Hey, guys!" Susanna said happily, watching us scramble to our feet and dust ourselves off. "A walk, I guess? Inside or outside?"

"Inside," I said quickly, and they all turned and blinked at me. "I... I just mean that Susanna's not dressed for a walk outside... Not in this weather."

"I guess you're right," she said with a shrug. "Or would you rather go to the kitchens?"

"Kitchens!" Betsy and Leah chorused, racing down the hall immediately, and I hurried after them, scrambling into the secret doorway Susanna was holding open for me when I caught up.

"Something bothering you, Remus?" she asked sweetly, and I so badly wanted to tell her how much I shared Sirius's worries and how I was terrified, especially with the Hufflepuffs living so close to the Slytherins, that she would get hurt because of her sister's carelessness.

But I said nothing.

"I'm fine," I assured her. "Just tired. N.E.W.T. year is stressful."

"Remus, you're always tired," she teased, following me into the kitchens where the house-elves were already taking orders from our companions. "What keeps you up so often?"

I couldn't tell her about the transformations and I wouldn't tell her about lying awake, imaging she was lying beside me, so I just shrugged.

Settling down in the seat next to Betsy, across from Leah, I ignored Susanna's curious expression, obviously trying to figure out what I was unwilling to tell her. Sometimes, I would come up with an explanation for things that weren't quite lies, because I hated lying to her, but were certainly not the awful truth, that I was a monster, and a monster who'd had the poor misfortune to fall in love with her. But I didn't have the energy to keep making up stories.

"So what's up?" Susanna finally asked when they all had warm butterbeer and biscuits. "Hypatia seemed to think you had something on your minds, said you were all tense."

Betsy snorted.

"She should have been a Ravenclaw," Betsy teased. "Everyone says so. She thinks she's so clever."

"Key word," Leah teased. "She _thinks_ she's so clever. Anyway, Sirius and I got into another fight. It's nothing. They just seemed to think I needed out of the tower, so it was a way to get out of there. Oh, Betsy had something to say, I guess."

"Ah, maybe another time," Betsy said with a shrug, a sly smile, and a wink at me.

And instantly I began to panic. That conversation we'd had, the one we thought Betsy had been sleeping through... We hadn't discussed the letters... had we? If Betsy somehow knew that it was me, if she was going to tell Susanna that I'd lied, that I was the one writing her the letters... What would I do? Surely she wouldn't spoil whatever end goal Sirius had for the interaction? He hadn't told me what the plan was exactly, although he paid close enough attention to each letter I wrote.

I still couldn't recall if we'd discussed the letters, but I didn't think so. I knew I had mentioned that I was worried about Susanna and even said I loved her, but any more than that? I expected the girls had already been telling her such things, not that it would change anything.

And Susanna and Leah didn't seem to think anything of Betsy changing her mind about sharing her information with them.

"What was the fight about?" Susanna asked, dipping one of the biscuits in her butterbeer, causing Leah to scrunch up her nose with distaste at the habit I thought was adorable, like a child. "Constantin again?"

"He's worried about her safety," Betsy said with a shrug. "He doesn't want her meeting with Constantin alone. He's worried about all of us, you, me, all of us. He doesn't want anyone wandering around by themselves. You know he's scared, Leah."

"Yeah," Susanna said softly, frowning down at her plate of biscuits. "I can imagine."

I frowned, trying to think of what she might be thinking about.

Then I recalled that their brief flirtation, their point of closest companionship, had been just after Sirius had run away from home. She must have gotten an earful, heard all the things fresh that he'd taken months, even years, to tell me: things he'd seen, things he'd been asked to do, things he was expected to do someday. Susanna had that way about her. People told her all sorts of things, even long-kept secrets, and she didn't even have to ask. It was just something about her, you just knew she'd keep the secret, that she would understand, even if she had no reason to understand. And some secrets, it just felt good to share them, some secrets needed to be shared, and Sirius's certainly had.

I realized it was exactly what I was doing, with the letters, sharing my secrets, even though she didn't know it was me.

And then I understood what Sirius was trying to accomplish. He was trying to show me that she could fall in love with my secrets as much as the rest of me. He was trying to get her to fall in love with the anonymous letter writer.

It was a dangerous thing, and if it didn't work and she found out it was me, she would be even more upset.

A dozen different thoughts were suddenly rushing into my mind, but I pushed them to the side and simply listened as the girls interacted, not wanting to impose my 'Marauder' presence on something so important, something that could change how we in Gryffindor interacted.

"You need to listen to him, Leah," Susanna said softly. "I know you don't like having people to tell you what to do, I don't either, but I'm scared too. Not necessarily of Constantin, but there's Avery to think of, and if Constantin's not there next time... Promise me you'll try to make peace with Sirius and listen to what he's got to say? It sounds like he's willing to compromise. And you know if it's come to that, he's really worried."

"I know," Leah sighed, defeated. "I promise we'll work on it."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

One less thing to worry about at night.


	10. Dropping the Other Shoe:SusannaandSirius

**A/N: Susanna's POV**

I looked over the latest letter from 'J'. I'd tried to coax Sirius into telling me who was writing the letters as I grew increasingly interested in the person behind them, since he seemed to know the person as well. Failing miserably in all my attempts to get him to spill on who it was, I enlisted Betsy and Mattia, two of the smartest, most observant people I knew, to help me piece it together.

"All right," Betsy sighed, sitting down with me as I carefully folded the letter and shoved it in my pocket. Mattia sat down beside Betsy, sliding over some books someone had left out on the table in the library alcove we'd chosen to meet at. "I've got a couple of theories. I'm not sure you're going to like either of them, and you're not going to like that I still really don't have a list of names, but there you go."

"I don't have a list yet either," Mattia said with a shrug, glancing over at one of the books curiously. I bit back a sigh, noting that it was about the properties of poisonous plants. She loved stuff like that.

"Glad I'm not the only one," Betsy said with a wry smile. "Anyway, they've not talked about the letters around me, but I'm sure that they're all in on it. And I've been looking around for a guy with 'J' as his initial, and I still say it could be one of the Marauders."

Mattia and I groaned.

"No, really!" Betsy said excitedly. "I mean, James is obvious, and then there's Remus and Peter who both have 'J' as their middle initial, I looked through their things... Um, don't tell them I did that, by the way. I was careful, don't worry. Anyway, it could always be someone else. I don't think it's James, though. He's in love with Lily, you know, or he thinks he is, so-"

"Definitely not James," Mattia said. "Trust me, I know their handwriting. It's definitely not James. Doesn't sound like him, anyway."

I mused that Mattia could easily tell me who it wasn't, but she never seemed to want to comment on who it might be.

Pushing aside that thought, which had been popping up more and more lately, I shook my head, realizing that it might even be Peter.

If it were Peter, or someone like him like... oh, Bertram Aubrey or Davey Gudgeon or someone like that, what would I do?

"You don't think it's Peter, do you?" I asked, scrunching up my nose slightly. I didn't have anything against Peter as a person, but as the letter writer...

The problem was, I was beginning to feel something for the writer of the letters, which made me confused. If I felt everything I thought I felt for Remus, and everything I felt for the writer of the letters... well... I was torn. I would have to choose. Anyway, despite what everyone kept saying, it seemed as though Remus didn't want me, and the letter-writer didn't want me knowing who he was.

I could understand that, to a point. He was a werewolf, someone who would be outcast and stigmatized if anyone found out. I knew that better than anyone, with my research and the essay I was working so hard on. But Remus, Remus I couldn't understand. The only reason he could push me away so deftly was not being interested, and even Sirius insisted that he was interested.

And Sirius never lied to me. He would tease me and twist things and not answer questions, he would give me riddles that only led to more questions than I'd started with, but he never lied.

It was all making my head hurt. And anyway, the letter writer didn't seem to want me, either, as he hadn't answered my latest note. I didn't want to respond to his letter until I got a response from the note, partly because I needed to know his answer before going forward, and partly because it was an excuse to devote the time I could have spent working on the letter finding out who he was.

Betsy had been thrilled to help when I asked her to, although Mattia had been... reluctant, to say the least. I couldn't figure out why, but I knew I had to go to her and not Leah, who was still on shaky terms with Sirius and unable to properly gather information for me. I don't think Mattia would have done it if Alyson hadn't told her it was the 'right thing to do', whatever that meant.

I think they speak their own language, sometimes, those two.

Anyway, she agreed to help, but she'd done very little helping, as if she was constantly arguing with herself whether or not to tell me something.

"I can't say that would be ideal," said Betsy, letting out a breath. "I don't know, other than Remus, is there anyone you want it to be?"

I frowned, trying to think of boys I thought were attractive or interesting or in any way compelling enough for me to want them to be the letter-writer. There really wasn't anyone I'd ever been interested in in any way, not really, except for Sirius. Sure, I'd played around, but never with any feeling in it.

And I wasn't about to tell Betsy that I wouldn't mind if it were Sirius.

Because I would mind, because it would mean that I'd need to beat him up for not being faithful to her. All the things the letter-writer had said about my looks...

No, it couldn't have been Sirius. He'd never said such things, whispering to me in dark corners of the castle when he told me all his secrets and shared a kiss or two with no witnesses but the moonlight. He liked fairer girls, like Betsy and... Leah?

Had Sirius been in love with Leah at some point, or was it just a coincidence that she was exactly his type _and_ his best friend?

But I pushed that intriguing and somewhat troubling thought to the side when Mattia said, "Well, is there?"

I shook my head.

There was no one else. I wanted it to be Remus, except it couldn't be. If Remus were a werewolf, he would have told me. If Remus thought those things about me, he might not have said straight out, but he would have given some sort of indication at some point, instead of just pushing me away.

It couldn't be Remus, so as badly as I wanted it to be him, I just had to keep looking.

"Well, it could be Remus," Betsy said eagerly, with a smile. "Couldn't it be, Mattia?"

Mattia just shrugged.

I hated that shrug. I didn't want shrugs, I wanted answers, and I was getting the feeling increasingly that she was holding back something important from me. I also knew that if she thought she was doing it for the 'right reasons', whatever those were, she wouldn't tell me no matter what I said or did or how I begged.

"I need to know," I said, begging in my own way, hopeless though it was, "but I'm not naive, Betsy. I know it can't be Remus."

Betsy and Mattia shared strange, sad, looks. It was something akin to pity, but I hardly cared about those looks anymore. I wasn't going to believe the stories any longer, believe when everyone told me he was interested. He clearly wasn't.

Then a horrible thought struck.

Maybe he was repulsed by me. Maybe he was only being polite in being around me in the first place, and all I was doing in flirting was embarrassing myself, creating endless hours of entertainment for the Marauders to laugh about when I wasn't around.

Perhaps that was what the pity was all about.

I could feel the tears prickling at the corners of my vision, but I blinked them away. I would not cry in front of them, even though they were my friends, not over something related to Remus. It was better to go on pretending I knew nothing than to let them know I understood that Remus didn't want me at all.

Betsy, Mattia, even my own sister, they'd all be a part of the teasing. Maybe they'd not known the truth at first, like I hadn't, but once they learned, none of them told me. None of them said a word.

I forced my lips into a smile that I hoped looked even a bit natural, although it felt anything but, and I said, "Well, thanks for the update. We'll get together in a week, yeah? I just remembered an essay I've got to get done for... a class. Anyway, see you guys around."

And before Betsy could point out that I didn't have any essays due or Mattia could ask me if I was okay, I scooped up my bag and rushed out of the library as fast as my feet could carry me, barely holding back the coming tears.

**A/N: Sirius's POV**

Mattia came flying up to us like a bat out of hell as we sat in a classroom, poring over the Map, trying to decide how best to prank Filch. Remus discretely wiped the Map as I greeted her.

"Hello, Holmwood," I said smoothly. "Don't know how you found us, but you know, it's rude to just barge in like-"

"Cut the crap, _Padfoot_," she spat. I blinked. Had she really just called me Padfoot? "I know about your Map. Alyson and I figured it out ages ago. I've got a bone to pick with you."

I knew that couldn't mean anything good, particularly when she looked as though she was about to claw my eyes out.

Ravenclaws don't get anywhere near that mad without serious provocation, and if I said the wrong thing I was liable to end up dead. I couldn't recall having said anything to Alyson lately that might even be taken the wrong way, so I was a bit at a loss as to what I would have done that could have upset her so.

"Pick away," I muttered, "but pick gently. I'm still trying to figure out what I've supposedly done."

"Your stupid letter scheme has spoiled everything!" Mattia screamed at me. "And you!" she hissed, rounding on Remus. "You're the most pathetic idiot I've ever met in my life! You love the girl, don't you?"

Remus just blinked at her.

Even on a bad day, none of us had seen Mattia Holmwood so furious.

"_Don't you?_"

"Yes," Remus said softly. "Of course I do."

"Because she thinks you hate her, you bloody idiot!"

Remus looked horrified, and I felt a bit sick to my stomach. I couldn't be sure from the lack of specificity of Mattia's rant, and I hoped that it wasn't somehow my fault that Susanna had gotten that impression. I sort of wished I had given her some clues when she came around trying to charm me into telling her who was writing the letters. Sure, I'd promised Remus, but it was for his own good.

"I could never hate her," he moaned. "How could she think that? How... I... Mattia, you've got to tell her, you've got to-"

"No," Mattia snarled.

I could barely believe how angry she was. Nice, sweet, quiet Mattia, snarling at poor Remus, who looked ready to cry.

"You," she said, poking Remus in the chest to punctuate each word, "are going to tell her. You should have told her ages ago and now she's devastated and confused because idiot over here thought it would be a grand idea to make her fall in love with the letter writer. Reply to that note, you bloody idiot!"

I wasn't sure, for a moment, which idiot she was addressing, but when Remus's eyes grew wide as saucers I decided it was probably him. I wasn't sure what note she was talking about, anyway.

"Right," Remus said. "Right."

"You boys," she said accusingly to the room at large, "need to fix this. You need to fix this fast, or I will make your lives hell. Remus, I'll tell Suzy the truth about the letters, except I'll tell her it was all a joke. Sirius, I will tell Betsy that you've kissed Suzy and tell Constantin you know about him and Leah. James, I will tell Lily every horrible thing I can think of about you, and I know plenty. And Peter..." She frowned thoughtfully. "Peter, I'll tell the Gryffindor girls that you've been spying on them when they change and shower."

Peter squeaked.

We all looked around at each other. I knew what she'd said about me was true, so I had to assume that what she'd said about the others was true, especially after Peter's incriminating squeak. So Remus knew that Susanna and I had kissed. And I knew about Remus, and I thought I knew most of what she could tell Evans about James, but I hadn't actually known about Peter. For half a second, I was impressed, but then I thought about how he'd probably spied on Betsy, and it looked like James thought the same about Evans, because we were both turning toward him angrily.

"We'll figure something out, Mattia," Remus said nervously. "I think we've got some things to tend to at the moment, though. Okay?"

She nodded, obviously satisfied with the disquiet she'd caused in our group, and then marched back out the way she came.

We all instantly turned toward Peter.

"You better not have been looking at Betsy," I growled.

"Or Evans," James added angrily.

"Can we all just calm down?" Remus sighed, obviously panicking still about his own ultimatum. "We've got bigger fish to fry. You can beat up Peter later."

Peter squeaked again.

We were still glaring at Peter when Remus fished his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of parchment. He unfolded it, his eyes scanned the words, and then he gasped, then groaned, then said, "I'll see you guys later. I have to write a letter. I need to be alone for this one."

Before any of us could argue, Remus shot off, leaving the note lying on top of the wiped map, taunting us with its unknown contents.

"We shouldn't look," James said slowly.

"But we're going to," I said, reaching out and scooping it up. "Anyway, we've read all the other ones."

I brought up the bit of parchment to read.

_Forgive me. I know you wanted to be anonymous, but I think... I think I might be falling for you, and I was hoping you could tell me who you are. Please._

_ -Suzy_

I exhaled slowly, passing the note to James, who read it with raised eyes.

"What is he even going to say to that?" he asked, stunned, passing it to Peter.

"Merlin only knows," I sighed, "but let's just hope he says the right thing. Mattia's right, this could blow up in our faces very easily if he screws this up."

We all nodded solemnly.

If Susanna really thought Remus didn't like her, if she somehow thought we were out to get her, to prank her or whatever, this could be disastrous. Not only would we be facing Mattia's wrath, but Susanna's as well.

Suddenly, Betsy's behavior was starting to make a lot more sense, as well. She thought she was sneaky and clever, but it was very hard to fool a Marauder.

Well, to be fair, Mattia knew all kinds of things that I still couldn't figure out how she'd found them out, but she had Alyson, and they were unnaturally good at that sort of thing.

But Betsy wasn't really all that stealthy, so when she started looking around our things and searching my trunk, I wondered what exactly she was going for. But she and Susanna were trying to figure out who the person writing the letters was. That would explain a lot of things about their behavior, actually and why she'd wanted to talk to Susanna the other day, but then didn't say whatever she'd wanted to say in front of Remus.

Susanna and Betsy were trying to track down the writer of the letters. Betsy apparently suspected that it was one of us, which probably wasn't working in our favor at the moment, and Mattia was privy to their discussions somehow (how was she privy to _everything_?), and she _knew_ it was one of us.

Well, it was Remus with more than occasional super-revising from James and me.

He was writing a letter to Susanna. Depending on what he said and how he said it, this could still be salvaged. He knew now that Susanna was capable of falling in love with a werewolf. All he had to do was explain properly why he'd done it, what his fears had been, and everything would be fine.

The three of us made our way back to the dormitory, where Remus was sprawled out on his bed, staring at the ceiling like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Mooney? You all right?" James asked. Remus nodded.

"I sent the letter," he sighed. "I'm terrified."

That would typically be something I considered a bad omen, but everything about how he felt for Susanna seemed to terrify Remus, so I decided to reserve judgment.

"What did you say?" I asked slowly.

"I said I'd meet her," Remus said faintly. "I gave a time and place and everything."

I let out a sigh. Well, it could go well. It could also blow up in our faces, but it could still go well. And I was counting on that.

"James, can I borrow your invisibility cloak?" Remus asked in that same, shaky voice.

"I'm not sure that's what Suzy had in mind when she said she wanted to meet you," James said slowly.

Remus shook his head.

"I've got a plan," he said.

Normally, with us, those words led to nothing good, but since I _didn't_ have a plan, I was just going to have to trust him.


	11. Drama: Leah and Sirius

**A/N: This chapter is in Leah's POV. It is also dedicated to my lovely friend, Amanda, who is my inspiration for Leah, and is eagerly following this story. Hope you like it, twinner!**

** -C**

My sister was up to something.

I knew it, and I didn't ask questions, because I had the distinct sense that it had nothing to do with me. I also got the sense that Mattia and Alyson were all over whatever it was, but when weren't they?

Instead, I was nursing my wounds from the latest Quidditch practice, in which James basically told me that it was me against the Bludger, much to my dismay. Lily was helping, but the bruises were multiplying, I swear.

"Can't you make that sting any less?" I snapped at Lily, counting all the ways I wanted to make James miserable for his mandate.

"Maybe if you'd stop moving it wouldn't hurt so badly," Lily retorted. "Look, you've had worse than this. You're just sour because Sirius is worried about you, and you know it."

Of course I knew it. That didn't mean I was going to admit it out loud just because she said it so bluntly. So instead, I just grumbled something unintelligible and flicked at the loose string on my pillow.

"I'm afraid I don't speak caveman, dear," Lily teased. "Look, if you would just hold still-"

"Then I'll be holding still and still in pain and it will take just as long, Lily Evans," I growled. "Don't you dare lie to me. You're not a dentist."

She laughed out loud at that, my throwing back at her the same thing she said to me all the time since she'd explained to me what a dentist was and why it was a funny sentence.

"Maybe I'll be a dentist someday," she said playfully. "You know, you're going to have to work things out with him, though. I don't get you being friends, but I'll accept it if I have to. You two have been friends for ages. It seems a silly thing to throw away, even if Constantin is the greatest thing that's ever happened to you, which I doubt he is."

I wanted to throw something at her, but she was right. I'd had a lot of great friends who I would rank above Constantin in the list of great things that had happened to me, Lily included.

So I didn't answer, just tried not to move as my skin stung while she rubbed the salve on me. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being right. Lily Evans was right too much of the time and it wouldn't hurt her to not be told once in a while. She'd get a big fat gingered head if we told her so every time she was right about something.

Gritting my teeth was just as much for not saying such things at her in bitterness as for biting back my discomfort and not growling about how my skin felt.

"Do you happen to know what my darling sister is doing these days when she's being cryptic?" I managed to ask through my pain and annoyance. "I haven't been able to figure it out yet and I don't really want to ask."

"I don't," Lily admitted. "There, you're done. No, I think that whatever Suzy's up to is her business really, isn't it?"

"Not if it keeps her and Remus apart," I said nervously.

Susanna was starting to pay less attention to Remus, I had noticed. She seemed confused about something, but because I had enough of my own issues to think about I didn't make a big deal about whatever it was.

"I'm sure that they'll figure it out," Lily said dismissively, helping me get up. "Anyway, I've got something that will sort this out if you apply it for the next few days, and your legs will be like new. Want it?"

"I don't want to use it all up," I muttered, embarrassed that she was constantly wasting things on me.

"Don't be silly, I can always brew some more," Lily said with a wave of her hand.

Ah, so she'd made it herself. Well, I couldn't find a reason to really argue with that, so I took it and she wrote up some instructions for me on applying it.

"Now, do this properly," she warned. "Follow it all to the letter, all right?"

"Of course, Mum," I teased. "C'mon, we're meeting Alyson and Mattia for dinner."

We went down to the Great Hall, me still walking tenderly, and we sat down at the Ravenclaw table with Mattia and Alyson, who were whispering excitedly about something when we arrived.

"What's up?" I asked, helping myself to some potatoes.

"Nothing," they chorused coyly, not fooling either of us, but leaving a very clear impression that we weren't getting anything out of them.

"So," I finally said. "Suzy tells me she's got the runic piece close to publishable quality."

"Oh, really?" squeaked Mattia excitedly. "How long, do you think?"

"Well, it's got to pass inspection with Dumbledore first," I explained. "That should go through next week if he doesn't suggest any changes. And then she sends it off to the Committee of Runic Scholars for inspection and editing. Once it gets past their stringent requirements, they publish it. And she'll probably win an award or something and then my house will be truly insufferable."

Lily snorted.

"Oh, don't start that," she said teasingly. "You know perfectly well that you're immensely proud of her! Don't pretend like you're not. Really we're all very proud of her. I've even thought about talking to Professor Slughorn about doing a similar project in Potions."

"Not Charms?" Mattia asked. "We could do something together, you know. We're pretty good at Charms."

"But Lily's top of the year in Potions," Alyson said evenly. "She's got to do what she's phenomenal at, not just pretty good. I think you should do it, Lily."

I just looked down at my sausages considering.

It wasn't that I wasn't proud of Susanna, or that I thought that Lily shouldn't pursue something like that, something that would be good for her. It was just that I had gone to the Runes professor and McGonagall asking to do projects like the ones my sister was becoming so renowned for and was shot down with two very different excuses.

"Miss Papp, you know that you're spreading yourself awfully thin already. You do such good work, and I would hate to see that slip by adding a project you don't need. And after all, Potter says we're counting on you to win the Quidditch Cup again. You don't want to let down Gryffindor, do you?"

"Leah, dear, you're very good at Runes, but especially with your sister's work... There really isn't any sort of project right now that I could put you on that would get anyone to even look at your work compared with this theory she came up with. I mean this text, it just..."

And then I was sufficiently bombarded with lavish praise of Susanna's brilliant work. And I got enough of that at home, certainly.

And Lily would certainly get what she wanted because Slughorn thought she was the greatest thing since crystalized pineapple.

"Go for it, Lily," I said casually, glancing over at the Gryffindor table where the Marauders were sitting down with my sister and the girls in her year. "Uh-oh, here comes trouble."

They all glanced over.

"Oh, I hope Betsy's careful," Lily said, worried. "Sirius is... well... She's a bit innocent to be pinning her hopes and dreams on a boy like him, isn't she?"

She wasn't asking for an answer, of course. That was a good thing and we exchanged amused looks.

Betsy wasn't exactly innocent, although she'd probably been more or less innocent in the ways of carnal interactions before Sirius took her off for a night in Hogsmeade, but she wasn't innocent otherwise. After all, she was friends with Susanna, she lived on her own in Muggle London. Things like that hardened a person.

"Looks like they're having some interesting conversation," Alyson said softly. "I wonder what idiot is making the other idiots angry this time. It looks like the tension is coming off that group in waves."

"I think it's centered around Sirius," I said softly. "Look at the way Suzy's looking at him. I've never seen her so furious with him ever. Have you?"

"Nope," Mattia and Alyson chorused. Lily shook her head.

"Well, I guess we could always go find out?" Mattia asked.

But none of us was really curious enough to go over and find out what the fight was about. We'd probably hear about it later, but there was no reason to spoil a perfectly good meal with the drama of someone else's life.

At least, that was my life philosophy.

"So," I said with a smile, "who wants to study Transfiguration after we finish here?"

/-/

**A/N: Sirius's POV**

"All I'm saying is it wasn't intentional," I argued, trying to save myself at the very least. "I never intended-"

"Of course you didn't," Susanna seethed.

I'd forgotten how sexy she was when she seethed, but somehow I still didn't want her as much as I wanted Betsy. Maybe it was because somewhere in the back of my mind I was truly afraid for my life.

"Look, she just showed up in my bed, all right?" I insisted. "I don't even know her name!"

"Nor do I, come to think of it," Remus said thoughtfully, looking around the Great Hall for the skank in question. "C'mon, Susanna, you can't believe that Sirius would actually go for a girl like that."

"I don't know what to think of him anymore," she hissed. I looked over at Remus and gave him an appreciative smile for standing up for me, but I could tell that he wasn't going to thank me for putting him on the opposite side from Susanna on any argument at all, especially not with his big day coming up when he was going to reveal himself to her. He must have been horribly nervous and I was, as usual, not helping.

"Suzy, please," I sighed. "Do you remember when that Hufflepuff boy was following you around all the time?"

She glared at me.

Of course she remembered. That was what had started our flirtation and pseudo-relationship in the first place. She had acquired the stalker much to her surprise and absolutely to no one else's and she spent about a month trying to politely and even rudely get rid of him, to no avail before she asked me to help her. That led to public flirting, which then led to kissing that continued even in private, even after the stalker had given up, realizing he never had a prayer.

"Yes," she said bitterly.

I couldn't help but smile a little to myself, thinking of the way she'd begged me to help her get rid of him. She was almost as sexy begging as she was seething.

"Remember his name?" I asked triumphantly.

She didn't know it because she'd never known it. She'd never taken the time to learn it because he was inconsequential in her life. Of course, she didn't remember that she'd never known it, and thanks to my careful way of approaching the matter she seemed to think she ought to know.

"What's your point?" she finally snapped.

"The fact is, if he'd found a way to get into your bed in the middle of the night, none of us would have thought you'd put him there," I said, raising my eyebrows. "I don't know why you automatically jump to the conclusion that if a girl's in my bed it's my fault. After all, our beds are a lot easier to get into than yours, aren't they?"

She colored a bit, and I briefly wondered what that was all about, but she glared at me so fiercely I knew I had won.

"Fine," she almost spat at me. "But if I find out you've hurt her, I'll kill you."

I nodded, and briefly assessed her ability to kill me. After all, Leah was the fit one in their family. Susanna was shorter, less muscular... And then I started thinking about wandwork and could barely recall a time when I hadn't seen a Runes book of some sort in her hand.

But then I recalled how coolly she had taken out her opponent in Dueling Club the week before, even considering the fact that her reaction times were pitiful. When she stuck her nose in books, apparently she was learning more than translations.

No, I decided that while I probably could deflect her head on, if she tried to murder me in my sleep she would almost assuredly succeed.

Not that I was going to purposefully hurt Betsy anyway, but it was always good to assess risk, especially where the Papp sisters were concerned. Somehow they always found out exactly what you didn't want them to know. Come to think of it, that was probably Mattia's doing, that sneaky girl. How did she know _everything_?

The meal was finished without any further chaos, and when the girls had left, James leaned over the table, grinning at Remus.

"When are you meeting up with her, then?" he asked eagerly.

"Soon enough," Remus sighed, looking out the Great Hall after where the girls had just left. "And yet not at all soon enough."

Somehow, in realizing that he was going to have to flat out tell her he was in love with her, Remus had gone from being too embarrassed to talk about her without prodding to being almost unappetizingly sappy.

I hoped that wasn't what I sounded like while talking about Betsy.

"Did you see the way she was looking at you?" James continued excitedly. "I wonder what that was all about."

I'd noticed that too, the way Susanna was seizing Remus up as if she'd never looked at him properly before, but I wished James hadn't pointed it out to Remus, because he would read in all sorts of things that surely weren't there. It probably was just her trying to decide what to do if she found out who the letter writer was and liked him. She would need to know where her affections lay.

But as Remus was the letter writer, it wouldn't be a problem. Probably.

"What do you mean?" Remus said anxiously, snapping his head back to look at James with wide, amber eyes glowing with apprehension. "What happened? How was she looking at me?"

How Remus could manage to stare at a girl for an hour and not realize how she was looking at him was beyond me, but then, he was besotted, sort of like the fact that James could stare at Evans for days and not notice that she despised him.

Stupid, really.

"Nothing," I said firmly. "Ignore the idiot. She wasn't looking at you in any strange way. Now, remember what I said last night?"

"Yes," Remus said solemnly, nodding his head slightly. "When I meet with her, I'm to tell her that I'm the one writing the letters, explain my condition fully before she has a chance to react, and come right out and tell her that I'm desperately in love with her."

I nodded approvingly and said, "And then?"

Remus gulped nervously and looked down at his virtually empty plate.

"Then I'm supposed to snog her until she forgets there was ever a thought that there might be someone other than me standing there, waiting for her and then we'll be together forever."

Once more, I nodded sharply and said, "There we go, absolutely fool-proof."

"What's fool-proof?" Leah asked as she and Mattia slid into seats with us. My eyes narrowed slightly at them, wondering how much of my brilliant plan they'd actually heard. "Hopefully nothing Sirius came up with. Even he can botch fool-proof."

"One time," I growled. "I break your leg one time and you never let me forget it."

She grinned.

"So what was all the chaos over here earlier?" she asked. "Something to do with your fool-proof plans?"

"No," I said with a bark of laughter, realizing that our heated argument must have caused a slight scene. "No, one of my admirers found her way into my bed last night and I got quite a shock in the morning when I woke up to find a stranger cuddling me. And your darling sister seemed to think I'd put the bint there. Don't worry, I set her straight."

"Did you?" Mattia asked slowly.

"Did I what?"

"Did you, as you so charmingly put it, 'put the bint there,' or did she end up there some other way?"

"I resent that you even asked that," I spat. "No, I didn't put her there. I don't even know who she is. Besides, I l-"

I froze.

I realized that I'd nearly said out loud that I loved Betsy, which might have even been true, but I certainly wasn't prepared to go saying it out loud, especially when I hadn't even told Betsy yet.

But Mattia arched an eyebrow at me, grinning slightly, and I knew she knew what I was about to say. I also knew that she would keep it a secret, allow me to mull it over and deal with it my own way, but at least she would let it go for now.

"Well, I thought Suzy might be ripping your face off any second, the way things were looking," Leah continued, obviously not noticing that I'd been about to say anything of importance. "I'm sure you're glad she didn't."

"I'm sure half of Hogwarts is glad she didn't," Remus said, uncharacteristically cheerful and outgoing. We all turned and looked at him, but he didn't seem to notice. He was stirring his tea and humming to himself, obviously lost in thoughts of Susanna.

I began silently praying that I didn't turn out like him and James, no matter what I decided about the love issue.


	12. The Rules: Claude

**A/N: Claude's POV (BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING).**

** -C**

After half an hour of Iris detailing all of the events surrounding the latest Betsy-Sirius controversy, I became acutely aware that my girlfriend wanted me to input some sort of my own insights to the event in question. Not being able to come up with anything more intelligent to say on the fly, I settled with, "So who was the girl who snuck in, anyway?"

This was, apparently, an acceptable question, because she said eagerly, "You know Pritha Blumstein?"

Oh, yes, I knew her.

"Wait," I said, just as I'd begun to nod. "She's a Ravenclaw. How did she get into Gryffindor Tower?"

"Apparently," Iris said slowly, "her cousin is a Gryffindor fourth year and she was returning a book she'd borrowed for an essay and made a... detour on her way out."

I began to nod again.

It wouldn't be the strangest thing I'd heard happening with the Gryffindors. And that was just from what I'd heard, not to mention the things I'd actually witnessed or been a reluctant part of.

Yes, somehow I'd been dragged into numerous misdeeds by my fellow prefect and her friends, two of whom were Gryffindors, and then there was Susanna Papp, who was virtually a Gryffindor in my book, especially whenever I had to deal with her. I'd managed to avoid any sort of trouble associated with my part in all such events, and I had to admit that I'd even had fun a time or two. We certainly always learned new things.

But still.

"So Betsy and Black are once more perfectly happy together?" I asked, running my finger along the edge of my essay, trying to find where I'd mentioned the symptoms of tentacula venom.

Ah, there it was.

"As far as I can tell, yes," Iris said, flipping through her textbook in search of something for her own essay.

In a way, I really didn't care what Sirius Black's love life was like, but on the other hand, Iris was such good friends with Betsy McNeil that I had to be interested in the outcome of this particular relationship, if I was at all interested in the outcome of my own.

And I certainly was, at that.

In fact, although I was keeping it to myself until she'd taken her N.E.W.T.s (still a bit away), I was planning on marrying Iris, if she'd have me. And I was fairly certain she would, if I didn't do something stupid in the meantime.

I looked up at my girlfriend, admiring how the candle and lamp light of the library made her brown hair glow almost reddish from the right angle. Her hair was always so shiny. Leaning forward a bit, I took my quill and tickled up her calf with the feather.

"Hey," I whispered when she looked up at me, clearly torn between amusement and annoyance that I was disrupting her studies. "We're on for the next Hogsmeade weekend, right?"

"Yes," she said with a grin, "now leave me along long enough to finish this essay and you'll have my undivided attention."

I wished she hadn't said that. Every time she promised me her undivided attention, something always came up to tear her away from me, and she would leave me with a promise of the next day, or later on, or whatever.

Sure enough, not ten minutes later, while I was making the final edits on my own essay and Iris was writing what seemed to be the last lines of hers, Brigitta Yoshida came rushing in, black hair all a mess, sitting down beside Iris and saying, "Betsy has an emergency."

The two girls exchanged a significant sort of look I had seen dozens of times that said the emergency in question absolutely couldn't wait. And then Brigitta tossed me a look of trepidation, obviously not wanting me to overhear whatever the emergency of the day was, so I nodded, edited a spelling error in the last line of my essay, and gave Iris a quick kiss before getting up and moving away from our little table in the library, thinking about what I could do while Iris sorted out the issue of the day.

As I walked away I heard Birgitta hissing, "She things she's in love."

I would have to tell Iris that Birgitta needed to work on her whispering.

Making my way back to Ravenclaw Tower, I thought over the words I'd heard and tried not to roll my eyes.

Betsy McNeil thought she was in love with Sirius Black.

Well, of course she did. Nearly every other girl in Hogwarts thought she was in love with the Marauder, and the others thought they were in love with his less-dashing more-athletic counterpart. That one I absolutely couldn't understand, but there was no accounting for taste.

I knew I was being a bit harsh. After all, Betsy was a nice girl, but she wasn't a desperate, money-grubbing, brainless chit who thought she'd be the one to tame Sirius Black. She'd lived a hard life, and so had he, come to that, as Susanna had told me every time I said a bad word about him. If anyone could actually keep his interest, she seemed to be the one to do it. And shouldn't I be happy that she'd fallen in love? Love was great. She deserved love and other such good things.

But I wasn't going to be too optimistic, just in case.

I stopped to tie my loosened shoe lace and thought about when I first realized I was in love with Iris. We'd been dating for about three months and she got the wizard flu. She wouldn't let me near her for three days until she was sure I wouldn't catch it, and I'd never missed anything more in my life than I missed being around her in that short span of time.

And that was that for me.

I didn't tell her right away, of course. I wasn't even sure how one went about telling someone that they loved them, but one day it just sort of slipped out and I'd been happily saying it ever since.

I got to Ravenclaw Tower just as my twin sister, Helena, was finishing the answer to whatever the door's riddle was, so I didn't have to wait around or think up an answer all by myself. I followed her inside and she smiled at me.

"Where's Iris?" she asked.

"Library," I said, looking around the common room. "Her Gryffindor friends had some emergency or another and she'll be along in a couple of hours, I expect."

"Ah," she said, nodding understandingly. "Listen, I've got practice tonight. Do you think you could look over my Arithmancy for me?"

I knew it had nothing to do with her practice and everything to do with the fact that she never noticed the errors that jumped off the parchment at me. I didn't mind glancing at things once in a while, but she'd gotten ridiculous over the years, making all sorts of excuses for me to check her work extensively, and she'd only gotten worse when she'd gotten a high enough O.W.L. to continue.

"No, it's fine," I assured her, as I always did, taking the parchment from her grateful hands and settling down by the window, glancing out on the grounds before settling myself in for a painful editing process that could be classified as a flat-out overhaul. Helena hurried off to her dormitory to do whatever she did before practice and I got left alone, acutely aware once more that it wasn't going to stay that way.

I'd nearly finished the final problem several hours later, my eyes tired and my brain sick of looking at numbers, when a person slid across from me at the little two-seater table overlooking the grounds.

Mattia Holmwood, my fellow Ravenclaw prefect, was looking at me intently.

I wanted to say no before I even knew what was the purpose of her sitting down, but I was unfortunately too polite for my own good.

"Yes?" I asked, adjusting the final proof of my sister's homework and putting it in my book bag to give her in the morning.

"Your assistance is required," she said cryptically, and then I wanted to absolutely run away screaming.

But of course, my politeness and the fact that I was intrigued, kept me from doing so, as always.

"This must be purgatory," I sighed at her teasingly. "You're constantly making me do things that have nothing to do for me. Tell me what great sin I'm atoning for, Mattia."

She snorted, shaking her head and saying, "We just need your Charms expertise, Claude, don't be too hard on yourself. It's not like we're asking you to sign over your soul."

I wanted to add 'yet' to the end of that, but decided not to. I rather liked having agency over my own soul and didn't want to set myself up.

"Who's 'we'?" I asked wearily, but she just smiled and beckoned me to follow her out of the common room, which I did with little hesitation. After all, she'd not gotten me into trouble yet.

Mattia led me to an empty classroom on the seventh floor, very out-of-the-way spot, which could only mean one thing.

"So what exactly am I doing and will I be expelled if I'm caught?" I asked with a small smirk.

"Shut up, Claude," Susanna growled without looking up from the parchment she was poring over. "Alyson, hand me a quill, would you?"

"Why am I even here?" Alyson asked, as she always did, although handing over the quill in question.

Her greatest skill was Astronomy, which never came into any sort of practical use in Susanna's elaborate plans, but she was another body which could be counted on to keep airtight council, and so she was always included.

"Will you all shut up?" Susanna moaned.

We did so, exchanging impatient and nervous glances until she finally stood up straight and held out the parchment.

"There," she proclaimed. "It's all worked out."

'It' was not, in fact, half worked out, and 'it' just happened to be a plan to hurt the Slytherins who had been trying to hurt her sister (so they told me) and manage not to have it traced back to any of us.

The plan was, admittedly, half-baked as usual, but based on sound principles that Mattia and I were able to lace together into a much more fully-baked plan that actually stood a chance of working.

"Right," Mattia said, holding the parchment roll open as we went over the details once more. "That leaves the research of this sealing charm to Claude, more venom gathering to me. Suzy, you'll make the Potion and please don't burn it. Alyson can only nick so many of these ingredients from Lily before she'll start to notice."

"Once again," Alyson said dryly, "why am I here?"

We all turned to her together, staring at her with the air of unimpressed adults haven't to explain something for the umpteenth time to a silly, impatient child.

"How else are we supposed to get the Slytherin password?" I said calmly. "You're the only Gryffindor we can trust."

Alyson snorted.

"And how am I supposed to get the Marauders to hand over this information, pray?"

"Use your feminine wiles," Susanna said dryly. "Peter's desperate and duller than usual these days. Use the weak link. Do whatever you have to and Obliviate him."

I blinked at her, because this was a line we'd never crossed.

"Are you sure that's advisable?" I asked. "I mean, it's just a bit extreme, don't you think?"

"No," she said firmly. "We don't want to even be possibly implicated in this, Claude."

"Why?" I asked slowly.

The girls exchanged nervous looks. Finally, Mattia said, "Well, to have this particular potion in the particular amount that we need isn't... isn't _strictly_... legal."

Illegal.

They'd had me do a lot of things, bend and break dozens of rules, even do things that were flat-out dangerous, but they'd never asked me to break a law before. They'd never even asked me to be complicit in law-breaking before. What would all her professors think of her if they could see this side of the 'wonderful', 'talented' Susanna Papp?

But these were soon-to-be Death Eaters who'd been breaking laws themselves and not receiving even close to proper punishment for it. The potion itself wasn't illegal, nor the brewing of it in contained amounts. It was just that there were too many of them to get the desired effect.

"All right," I said finally. "All right, Obliviate him, but be careful about it!"

I then proceeded to teach Alyson more proper Obliviating technique for her task so that she wouldn't do any permanent sort of damage to Peter, just block the specific memory in the safest, strongest way.

We separated for our various tasks, me practicing the sealing charm for the poultices we were going to use, the others going their own way, doing the bits they'd been assigned to do. The potion was ready but for Mattia's venom when she arrived back with several vials of the stuff.

"Aren't you supposed to be at practice?" I asked her as she and Susanna examined the potion and began to stir in the venom.

"I told Helena I had detention," she said dismissively.

"And she believed that?" I asked incredulously.

Mattia never got detention.

"I told her I had detention for spilling ink all over Filch's freshly polished floor," she said with a grin. "What's not to believe?"

I had to grant her that, and I began to fashion the poultices with some of the herbs Susanna had set aside and the sealing charm to weave them together, readying them for the potion.

"I've got the password," Alyson said, a look of distaste on her face, crinkling her nose. "Next time, let's get it from Sirius and have one of _you_ do it."

"He'd be too suspicious," Susanna said, dismissing the idea with a wave.

"Don't you have something you can hold over his head, Mattia?" Alyson said, not quite whining, but clearly wanting to find some way out of her unsavory task.

"I need to save my trump cards," Mattia said simply.

Whatever that meant.

"Fine, then next time Suzy's dealing with Peter," Alyson said grumpily. When Susanna opened her mouth to protest, Alyson said, "Just bat your eyelashes at him and you'll have it in seconds."

There was no argument to be made to this, so we made up the poultices and I made certain they weren't leaking before we went down to the location we knew held the Slytherin dormitories. It was well past curfew at this point and we had little concern that we would come across someone in the common room that we couldn't handle. I was too busy on look-out to make sure no one was coming to listen to the password, and I was happier not knowing, anyway.

There was, thankfully, nobody in the common room as we snuck through the eerie green space.

"Follow me," Alyson hissed, making her way through the room, me casting wordless Silencing Charms as we went, making certain that our feet made no sound on the carpet as we wandered toward our prey.

Alyson opened a door that thankfully didn't creak, and she motioned for us to follow her inside for good measure.

We had agreed, on the way, to put a poultice under Constantin's pillow too, just to make it seem less like us.

The work was quick once we got going, me doing the necessary charms wordlessly and then ushering us out again, making sure we left no traces of ourselves. There was no one in the common room once more on the way out, and once we made our way back to the corridor we let out a collective sigh of relief.

"I need to go back," Alyson sighed. "I'm the only one who has no permission to be out this late. I also have to be sure that Leah and Lily are still up playing chess with Sirius and James. I told Remus they would need fool-proof alibis if something I'd heard was true and he assured me they'd get them."

Alyson and Mattia could get away with things like, 'something I heard' because for some unknown reason, they managed to hear everything that happened at the castle.

We said goodnight to Alyson, parted with Susanna somewhere near the kitchens, and then hurried up to Ravenclaw Tower. Mattia hastily answered the riddle in a hiss, making certain that we didn't wake any late-night studiers who were sure to have fallen asleep at their books. I came in after her to notice that Iris was one of these, face planted in her History of Magic text in the very seat I had been in earlier.

Mattia hurried up to bed with a nod by way of parting words, and I moved over to get a better look at Iris, who was still fast asleep when I knelt beside her, adjusting her coat more snuggly around her. She looked beautiful in the moonlight and I kissed her forehead before heading up to bed. I didn't want to wake her, although she wouldn't sleep comfortably, because I didn't want her wondering why I was up so late, especially in light of what would happen.

For in the morning, I thought, calculating that it would be five hours, all of the Slytherin boys in the dormitory Alyson had led us to, would be afflicted with violent, hysterical illness. They would be delirious with fever and covered in boils, not to mention the aching and internal upset.

Needless to say, the hospital wing would have a few beds full in the morning.

In spite of the implications of what I'd just done, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

It had been worth it.


	13. The Writers: Susanna

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Hillary, my friend and inspiration for Alyson. Her continued readership is appreciated. :D Susanna's POV.**

** -C**

Sirius was right, breaking the law and getting away with it was exhilarating.

Of course, I would never tell him that, because that would alert him to the fact that I'd broken the law, and if too many people knew that my reputation would be ruined, and everything in the world of academia rests on reputation.

Instead, I thought it to myself as the last of the Slytherins we'd hit was discharged from the hospital wing. It happened to be Snape.

Apparently, he was as sickly as he looked, and didn't get on well with our treatment of him.

Not that I particularly cared about Snape's well-being, but I did care about him finding out I was involved. If I was being honest with myself, I was more afraid of him than of Azkaban.

As I made my way down to breakfast, he glared at me and I froze for a moment, sure he knew it was me.

"I know it was your stupid little friends," he growled at me. "You tell Black and Potter that they're not going to get away with this."

For a moment I was too stunned to properly process what he'd said.

Thankfully, Lily came to the rescue of the Marauders, because I was proving a very incapable heroine.

"They didn't do it, Severus," she said coldly, stepping up beside me with Leah in tow. "I happen to know that they were in Gryffindor Tower all night that night, so they couldn't have been the ones. Surely you and your... friends have other enemies."

Before he had a chance to retort or grovel at her feet or whatever it was he was planning on doing since Lily had just talked to him, Lily led us off to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"I wish Potter and Black hadn't gotten themselves such a reputation," she sighed. "Even when they clearly didn't do it everyone thinks they did."

We sat down together at Gryffindor table and started putting food on our plates.

"I wonder who did," Leah said slowly. "I would have thought it was Peter working on their behalf, too, with Constantin involved, but Remus assures me that he and Peter were sleeping. But who else could have gotten into their dormitory?"

It was so hard, doing great work and not even being able to take the credit for it. The sacrifice of genius, Sirius had once called it.

"Maybe it was someone in their dormitory," I said in my most thoughtful voice. "I mean, despite what Sirius always says, not all Slytherins are created equal."

"Did I hear my name on your tongue, lovely?" said the voice of the devil himself as he slid into the seat beside me, grinning.

"You're in an awfully good mood this morning," Leah said warily.

"Did you see the look on Snivelly's face?" Sirius said with a bark of laughter. "That's enough to put anyone with sanity in a good mood. I'd love to shake the hand of the girl that did that."

I stiffened.

"Girl?" Lily said with frown. "What makes you think it was a girl?"

"Oh, it's just a hunch, that's all," Sirius said, but I knew from the way he put his hand on my leg that it was anything but a hunch.

Sirius Black knew I'd broken the law, and I had no idea what he would do with that information, but I knew he'd not make my life any easier by it. The other Marauders showed up and I had hoped that Sirius had quite forgotten the whole thing by the end of breakfast, but he pulled me aside as we were leaving the Great Hall and into an abandoned classroom.

"Welcome to the club," he said with a grin, and I scowled at him.

"How did you know?" I demanded, and he winked.

"You forgot a little something that I'm almost sad you forgotten," he said teasingly, suggestively, even, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bit of parchment.

I groaned.

The Marauder's Map.

He was right, how could I have forgotten that he could see everything I was doing?

"So what is it that you want from me, then?" I said cautiously. There had to be something. Even Sirius Black didn't do something for nothing, even for me.

"Oh, darling," he sighed with a grin, "let's just say that you owe me, all right?"

I raised my eyebrows.

Dangerous as that very sentiment could be, especially with Sirius, it felt like I was getting off easy. I didn't want to owe Sirius, but I realized very quickly that he already knew what he wanted, he just was waiting for the right moment to get it.

And that was more than a little unsettling.

"Fine," I finally sighed. "Fine, keep your secrets. Merlin knows I've got enough of my own."

I would let him try to puzzle that out as I went to the library. Of course, he would know that Remus had set me up in correspondence with his werewolf friend, but what he didn't know was that this friend and I had set up a deep confiding, almost flirtatious relationship. Whatever Sirius was thinking my secrets were, I was almost certain he wasn't expecting that, and it made me smile a little to myself as I walked away.

No, I couldn't keep all my secrets from Sirius, and I never kept any too long, but I still could keep a few, for a time, and that was a happy thought.

I made my way to the library, hoping Sirius was watching me go, puzzled, picturing to myself his face when he was confused and smiling a bit to myself.

To me, he was always more attractive when he didn't look like he knew everything, rare though that was. Resisting the urge to check if he was actually wearing that expression, I continued on, not wanting to be late, not that Zola would notice.

Zola was, in fact, a Gryffindor in the same year as the Marauders and Leah and Alyson and Lily and so on, but she spent so much time in the library that her possible companions at any given time could be counted on one hand. I was only included in this because she was, contrary to the popular belief that_ I_ was, the research queen of Hogwarts. She was, in fact, brilliant.

Zola Hilton spent much time in the library, pouring over histories and tomes written in such ancient runic dialects that even I struggled with them sometimes (when she came to me for help). She was working, in fact, on a book. She'd already written several articles, although she seemed to have very little interest in publishing them, much to Professor McGonagall's dismay. Her book, actually, was to be a complete history of the founding of Hogwarts, even more detailed and comprehensive for its period than the work of Bathilda Bagshot, famed historian.

She actually had tea with Bathilda Bagshot sometimes, which made me insanely jealous, not because I cared about history, but because she was the most well-published witch in our era.

"Hi, Zola," I said, sliding into the small alcove of the library that had become, more or less, her cave of brilliance in her last few years at Hogwarts. It was almost strange to think that she would be vacating it in less than a years' time. "How's your morning?"

"Here," she said with a smile, pushing an edited copy of my manuscript across the table. "My morning is well, and yours?"

"It was better before I saw how much pink ink you put on this thing," I said teasingly, flipping through the pages that seemed nearly soaked with the ink which was her editing trademark.

"It wasn't all that bad," she said with a friendly smile. "Most of it is just suggestion. And anyway, you did ask."

It was true, I had asked her to basically editorially shred my essay, partly because I knew she would do it anyway and I wanted to mentally prepare myself for it, and partly because I was more than a bit worried about publishing and wanted a seasoned essayist who wasn't an all-knowing adult to give me their best advice. One can't be squeamish about such things.

"True," I told her with a smile, sitting down and flipping through the manuscript. It did seem to be mostly suggestion, which was heartening.

Although, perhaps it shouldn't have been heartening, because Zola had a tendency to put things in the nicest way possible, so recommendations and suggestions from her were really, 'This needs to be done.'

Not wanting to be rude, I then glanced over at the book she had open.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Surprisingly," Zola replied with a small smile, "it's a first edition of _Hogwarts, A History_. Batty's loaning it to me."

I wasn't sure what was making me more jealous, the fact that Zola could use Bathilda Bagshot's nickname or the fact that they were loaning each other things.

"Anything useful?" I asked, swallowing my issues with the jealousy and returning to my interest in her work, which was genuine, if not particularly flared that day. After all, I had things happening later to be mentally preoccupied with.

"Not terribly," Zola admitted, frowning slightly at the book. "But there are a few things here and there that are different or new. At least, to a reader of this book."

That is to say, it was not new information to Zola. I was actually beginning to wonder whether she would be able to finish her book, with the amount of information she had already exhausted on Hogwarts. But then, just when I thought Zola was no longer full of surprises, she would come up with something incredibly shocking and prove me wrong.

So I held my piece on her book and waited as always to see her work her incredible skills on the whole project.

"How's life?" I finally asked, pulling out my own quill and ink to go over the edited manuscript while I had nothing else to do.

Zola gushed about her boyfriend, Linos Mason, who was her only social life apart from myself, as far as I knew. Then again, she was at least friendly with the Gryffindor girls in her year, so I tried not to pass that particular judgment, knowing that Zola always had more surprises up her sleeve.

Honestly, she had been dating Linos for about as long as I could remember, certainly as long as I'd known her personally, and everyone who thought about either of them at all was certain that he would propose to her on graduation. That is, everyone but Zola.

She maintained that they were probably going to continue as they were until he could no longer stand her scholarly habits, and that they would probably have to live apart anyway, to satisfy both his career aspirations and her research needs.

But I was sure that she was underestimating how much Linos loved her.

It was beautiful, actually, the way they were together, which not many people got to see. I'd long wanted to find something so good for myself, which had seemed impossible with the fluctuations in my own love life always seeming to be on the negative.

Speaking of my love life, I did have an appointment to keep, I realized as I glanced almost habitually at my watch. I was meeting the mystery letter writer and deciding what I was going to do about the confessions of affection he had given me. I was already aware of blushing a bit when I cut off Zola and said, "Sorry, but I just remembered I've got someone to meet. I'll go over this and give you the next draft when I finish, okay?"

"Sure!" she said with her sweet smile and a wave as I carefully put the manuscript in my bag and hurried away to the Prefect's Bath.

I caught my breath and put my bag on the driest part of floor by my feet where the edge of the giant bath-pool thing was. My mind began to reel as I wondered who was going to meet me, and to increase the anticipation I turned away from the door, my ears pricked carefully in case of an entrance so I could be prepared and not doing something stupid.

I walked across to the nearest mirror and began to consider my appearance.

Generally speaking I liked the way I looked, but I had my good days and my bad days like anyone else. Thankfully, this was one of my good days, I found as I ran my fingers through my slightly-wavy hair which was growing increasingly wavy with the humidity of the room. Leah's hair did that too, but I liked it better than she did.

I had just begun to run my finger across my lips, trying to decide whether or not to put on any lipstick when Remus suddenly appeared in the mirror and I jumped when he said my name, his eyes burning with a light I couldn't recall seeing in them ever before. I would have shuddered, but I was too stunned to move.

"Remus?" I whispered. "I... you... I'm just... Did you...?"

"I'm here to see you, Susanna," Remus said softly, taking a step towards me, and I had no idea what to do. Wasn't I supposed to be meeting the letter writer? Was something wrong? Was he ill? Why was Remus there in his place?

"Oh," I said, feeling a bit stupid about not thinking of something better to say. If he hadn't been watching me so intently in the mirror I probably would have taken the opportunity to admire the way the light in the room made his tired face seem almost... sexy.

"Susanna," he said, and suddenly I realized that I hadn't yet told him to call me Suzy. Was it the strange nature of the situation I was finding myself in, unsure of what exactly what was going on? Or was it the fact that Remus looked and smelled so good and my name sounded so very good when he said it like that?

And he had gotten much closer, close enough that I could smell his comforting scent. It was all I could do not to turn around and bury my face in his shoulder and just breathe in forever.

"I'm not sure I understand," I said softly. "How did you know I was here?"

It was a stupid question, of course. He had that map, the one that I knew so well. If he wanted to find me any time he just had to search the map for my name.

"Because," he said softly, taking a step closer, so close that I could almost feel his chest on my back, his eyes locked with mine in the mirror. "I told you to come here."

My mind was whirring as I turned to face him, realizing vaguely that his hand was on my arm, stroking up to my shoulder with a gentle touch. Perhaps I should have been enjoying that sensation, of his tender fingers on my skin, but instead I blinked at him, searching his amber eyes for some sort of explanation.

"But... but... You didn't," I said numbly, still trying to sort things out. "Your friend, he did. The one who's been writing to me. The werewolf."

There was a small flicker in his eyes, but whatever it was, I didn't have time to register the change before they were back to how they had been, still burning with that strange fire I couldn't name.

"No, Susanna," he said softly, his fingertips now on my collarbone as he held my gaze. "I did. There was no friend. I'm the one who has been writing to you. I'm the werewolf." He took a step closer, his fingers tracing up my neck. "I'm in love with you."

His lips were so close I could almost taste his breath. It appeared to me that I had two options. There was certainly a part of me that wanted to lean forward into his touch and press my lips to his, taking full advantage of the room we were in and how absolutely delicious he smelled and the fact that I could still feel tingling where his hand had trailed from my arm to my neck. The other option was to take a step back, to demand he explain exactly what was going on, and to process everything before I actually decided to do anything at all. There was an equally large part of me - namely my confused brain - that was demanding that I do this instead.

Things certainly were going too quickly and suddenly and I needed to figure out what to do, to make a decision. His lips moved a bit closer to mine and between that and my racing mind it felt as though the world was spinning. He was the letter writer? He loved me?

But didn't I love him? Why would this be a strange, difficult thing to grasp? Was it because I thought him indifferent to me? Was it because I thought he was pushing me away?

Was there anything more important than the delicious scent that was threatening to take me over?

I thought his lips might be descending toward mine, although it might have been because the room was spinning. I needed to make a decision, and I needed to do it fast, because regrets happen when people just let life happen to them, as good or bad as that might end up being.

Between the smell and feel and whirling in my brain I then did the only sensible thing I could do, the only right decision, it seemed in the moment:

I grabbed my bag from my feet and bolted out the door.


	14. Miscommunication: Leah

**A/N: Leah's POV**

** -C**

Things had been more than a little tense between the Marauders (mostly Remus) and Susanna for weeks, but nobody was telling me a word about what was going on, even my sister, and I admittedly had my own problems to be thinking about. The last thing I needed was for Susanna's drama to blow up at me to, even though I knew that either she would have to fix it or I would have to confront it eventually, because my sister not getting along with some of my best friends was just not going to last. It couldn't.

Besides, things were hard enough with the guff I was getting from Constantin about his friends and what had happened to them with that stupid prank.

I'd told him what felt like hundreds of times, but he was still convinced that it was one of my friends, even though it was obvious that nobody who could have gotten into their dormitory had done it. They'd even complained to Slughorn, gotten an inquiry.

The Marauders had been fully absolved.

But still, Constantin just wasn't buying a word of it, he wasn't satisfied, and it was seriously cramping my love life.

And that was, in fact, the reason I was stabbing my potatoes with my fork, not because Sirius was harassing me, despite what he probably would have liked to believe.

"Leah, are you even paying attention?" he snapped.

"No," I said honestly, glaring at him. "Leave me to eat in peace!"

He raised his eyebrows, looking down at my plate.

"Leah, dear, you've not eaten anything. You're just turning things to mush. And besides, this is important, so will you please just listen?"

I had listened long enough to know it was about Susanna before zoning out, of course. But what did he want me to do about things? I didn't even know what was going on with them.

"What was it you wanted again?" I asked, going back to my plate, this time mashing up my peaches.

"I need you to help me lock Suzy up in a room with me," he said brightly. "She's not talking to me, she's avoiding me quite deftly, and I need to talk to her."

My sister didn't often avoid Sirius, so whatever it was that was going on, it was a big deal. She was clearly making quite an effort. As a token of sisterliness, I frowned up at him.

"If Susanna doesn't want to talk to you then I'm sure she's got a very good reason," I said smartly. He began to protest, but I cut him off. "I don't want to hear any more about it, Sirius. I'm not going to help you. I'm sure James would be thrilled, now leave me alone."

I didn't tell Sirius no very often, but when I did, no meant no and he knew that. So instead of trying to argue some more, he did, in fact, get up and move down toward where the other Marauders were sitting. I sighed.

"Don't you think you were a little hard on him?" Alyson asked, and I jumped slightly, not having been aware that she had been present.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking around at Alyson and Mattia, who were sitting by me and had been the whole time, I supposed.

"You didn't even listen to what he had to say," Alyson pointed out. "It seems to me it would have been reasonable to at least hear him out."

I looked down at my mushy food and frowned. She was right, I knew. But honestly, I had far too many things to think about to bother with apologizing to Sirius. Besides, he was already gone.

"Something's on your mind," Mattia pointed out. "What's wrong?"

I sighed.

Of course they could tell something was wrong, I had snapped at Sirius rather unwarrantedly and managed to turn my entire meal into a mushed mess on my plate. Even for me this was not typical behavior.

"I'm just frustrated because Constantin insists that somehow the attack on the Slytherins had something to do with me. I just can't find a way to make him see otherwise."

"Well, it sort of is," Alyson pointed out in that voice she used when she was saying things that were utterly reasonable and was surprised that the person she was saying them to couldn't see the obviousness of it.

But how could it be my fault? I didn't attack anyone, I never would have attacked Constantin, and I had no idea who could have done it because all of the people I would have thought would have done it were completely accounted for and absolved. I didn't want to think about who might have done the prank for me, especially considering how murderous a few of the Slytherins were about the whole thing.

I shook my head.

"No, really," she continued. "You get attacked by a bunch of Slytherins and then they all just happen to have been mercilessly pranked? That doesn't happen by sheer coincidence."

"Constantin didn't-"

"He didn't stand up for you," Alyson continued. "He's not coming out in the open about it like a brave boyfriend would."

I wanted to point out that he wasn't a Gryffindor, but I had a feeling I would be a my-point-exactly look for my efforts, so I refrained.

"Besides," Mattia pointed out, "the logical thing would be to blame it on the Marauders. Leaving Constantin untouched would have been counterproductive."

She was right about that. It had certainly thrown a lot of suspicion on the Marauders.

Somehow it was even less comforting, though, knowing that the whole ordeal probably was my fault in some way. Or rather, that it did have something to do with me. After all, what did that mean for my relationship with Constantin?

And more importantly, who was the one responsible for everything? It wasn't the Marauders, so who did I have to blame/thank, really?

I continued to angrily mash my food.

Of course, I should have known then that the day couldn't turn out good for anything, but I still had an optimistic attitude when I went to classes. It was promptly shattered, however, when I walked into the girl's toilet on the first floor between classes, only to find Sirius and Betsy shouting at each other, the insults echoing off the walls. There was no way they could hear or understand each other. They just kept shouting over each other, as if yelling just a little bit louder would make the other person stop and listen.

I really had to use the toilet, so to begin with I walked right past them to the stalls, did what I had to do, washed my hands, and walked back over to the pair who obviously hadn't realized that someone else was there with them. Irritated, I pulled out my wand and silenced them both. They both looked at me, shocked, and when the echoing died down I began to speak with them as calmly as possible.

"Now," I said, "when I lift this charm you are going to tell me what this is all about one at a time starting with Betsy, and you are going to talk about it like civil people. Understood?"

It took a moment to get a response, but they both did nod after a bit, reluctantly, it seemed.

I waved my wand and released them from the charm, turning to Betsy.

"What's happened?" I asked.

"There was a girl in his bed again this morning," Betsy said softly, eyes full of tears, either from hurt or rage, I really couldn't say. I fought the urge to assault Sirius and let her continue. "I don't want to constantly be hearing about him and other girls, it's exasperating!"

This was more than a bit disconcerting, not because I had any doubt of Sirius's faithfulness, but because I knew it would not get any easier for Betsy in regard to the rumors and the stupid fan girls. I had known Sirius long enough to know that when he looked at a girl like he looked at Betsy, that meant something special. I also knew he was all talk, and that his moral gauge for how to treat a girl he was dating (well, as far as faithfulness was concerned) was what Mrs. Potter would say if she found out about his behavior.

He certainly never meant to encourage the stupid fan girls, but people as pretty as Sirius often didn't have a choice in the matter. And on top of his being pretty, he was unquestionably the most popular boy in school, only magnified by the fact that he was best friends with the Quidditch hero of Gryffindor.

It was amazing, I mused, how shallow some people could be as there was so much more to Sirius, but then, he'd had even more rabid fans when he was still set to inherit the Black family fortune, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at all.

"Sirius," I sighed, "is this the same girl?"

"She looked the same," Sirius said with a shrug. "I still don't know her name. I'm pretty sure she's not a Gryffindor, though."

"It was a Ravenclaw," Betsy spat. "I don't remember her name either, but she shouldn't have even been in Gryffindor Tower! Explain that, Sirius!"

"Woah, civil, please," I reminded her, holding up a hand to try to calm them down. "I'll look into it. Tell your side of the story, Sirius, calmly, please."

"That's just it, it's not changed!" he said, running his fingers through his raven locks anxiously. "I don't know anything about who she is and how she got there, and don't say I was drinking last night because I remember everything I did and I certainly didn't drink a drop."

"Don't worry, I believe you," I said gently. "Now, Betsy, I think you and I need to have a bit of a chat. Sirius, get lost."

Instead of being insulted by my abrupt dismissal, Sirius looked relieved, as I knew he would be. He kissed a disgruntled, fuming Betsy on the cheek and walked out of the girls' toilet, leaving us alone.

"How can he be like that?" she sighed. "How can he be so... so...?"

"Unconcerned?" I offered. "Cavalier? Bloody charming?" Betsy nodded. "Look," I said with a heavy sigh, "you know as well as I do that it's not his fault. He's doing his best."

"I know," she admitted. "But... but it's so stressful, being his girl. The looks I get from other girls, the knowing that someone's always going to be trying to steal him away from me. It's aggravating. Brigitta suggested talking to him about it, but somehow it turned into a shouting match."

"My advice?" I said. "Don't bring it up. Complain to your friends. Hex a few of them when he's not looking. But Sirius can't do anything about it, and knowing that is only going to frustrate him even more. If you want to be happy between the two of you, you're going to want to suffer alone on this, because he's already suffering on hurting you without being able to stop."

She looked up at me, surprised.

"You're sure?" she asked. "He never said anything about-"

"Betsy, he's a boy," I sighed. "And more than a boy, he's Sirius. He doesn't like to talk about things that bother him."

Betsy didn't seem to like this idea very much, but eventually she agreed with me, thanking me for my advice, saying she would consider it. I hoped she actually would and I watched her leave the toilet with a contemplative look on her face, so at least she was considering it for the moment.

And then I had the sudden urge to wash my hands again, so I did so, trying not to think of what that girl who snuck into Sirius's bed had done before she had been discovered there.

When I got back to Gryffindor Tower for my free period, I settled down with my Ancient Runes texts and a bit of parchment and began translating roughly, knowing I would be going over my notes again later with a more careful eye and fixing my mistakes, smoothing out my coarse translations.

Despite what people might like to believe, this was actually a tactic I taught Susanna. Her translations were much coarser than mine to begin with, but hers somehow always came out looking smoother, and there was an idea running around that she came up with such smooth translations naturally.

Which was absurd, really, because not even the greatest translators of all time had naturally smooth translations, and certainly no one our age ever did.

I had just settled in, quill in ink, ready to begin my first line, when Peter Pettigrew of all people sat down across from me.

"I'm a bit busy at the moment, Peter, but we can talk later," I said, turning back to my book and trying to concentrate on the familiar symbols.

"It's not me, it's Sirius wants to talk to you," Peter squeaked. Then, upon realize that he'd said exactly what he hadn't meant to say, he gave a terrified sort of squeak and said, "I mean-!"

"Relax, Peter, I wasn't coming with you either way," I told him, wondering if that would actually assuage his guilt at spilling the beans before properly luring me off in whatever way he had been proscribed.

I knew what Sirius wanted to talk about. Rather, I knew Sirius wanted to talk about whatever it was to do with Susanna, or perhaps even Betsy, but I had my own life and my own work and I'd already told him no on the one count and I just wasn't going to jump to his beck and call every time he needed me.

But surprisingly, timid Peter wasn't budging.

Whatever Sirius had said to pluck up Peter's courage, it had obviously done the trick, because he then said, "No, it's really important that you do this, Leah. It has a lot to do with Remus's health and happiness."

Remus?

I thought we were talking about Susanna.

Or were we still?

Health and happiness...

Was he going to tell my sister about his condition? Did he want my help, my advice? I wasn't sure how I could be of service. All he had to do was tell her.

"I'm not sure I understand," I said slowly. "Does this have to do with Suzy?"

Peter hesitated.

Ah, so it did. I nodded to myself, cleaning off my quill and capping my ink.

"All right then," I said, hoping it was about what I thought it was about. "I suppose it can't wait?"

"Sirius said to get you now," he said sheepishly.

"Don't worry, I won't tell him you spilled the beans," I assured him. Why Sirius thought everything needed to be a top-secret mission was beyond me. Probably the boys had been watching too many Muggle films.

Peter fidgeted anxiously for a moment, perhaps deciding what he should do or say next, and then he nodded, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and I cleared away my things into my bag, judging that he was going to lead me out of the common room upon my readiness.

I was right, of course. Peter was, unsurprisingly, the most predictable of the Marauders and after more than six years I'd gotten reading all of them generally down to a science.

"It's not far," he assured me.

As I followed I thought of the state Remus had been in lately, the state he must be in at that moment, waiting for me to come and give him advice that he probably didn't even need. After all, there wasn't anyone more understanding than Susanna.

But he was nervous, of course. Remus had always been nervous where his condition was concerned, and where Susanna was concerned, and putting the two together had probably driven him to the verge of nervous breakdown.

Yes, perhaps Sirius calling on me was the smart thing to do after all.

Who knew he had it in him?

Of course, my confidence in his intelligence was once again called into question when I found Remus not only distressed, but curled up in a corner, crying, and Sirius pacing the room. James was sitting on a desk between the two, clearly trying to decide what he was supposed to do, and this was the scene Peter led me into before scurrying to his own corner and looking around with wide eyes at the other three.

Great.

"All right, Peter said it's important, so tell me what's so important," I said, ignoring Sirius and moving to comfort a clearly distraught Remus.

Sirius, though, blocked my path and looked straight into my eyes, his own grey eyes flashing wildly.

"You need to get your sister to talk to me. She's been very stupid."

I blinked.

What had she done?

I looked over at Remus, saw how utterly broken she was, and then realized something that didn't seem possible at all in my mind when I thought of my sister and Remus.

Somehow, he'd told her some or even all of the truth, and she'd done the unthinkable and turned him away.

Or something like it.

I didn't know what was going through Susanna's head, but there was some sort disconnect, there must be, and I needed to figure out what it was.

"What do you expect me to do?" I asked. "You know how stubborn she can be."

I was thankful that Sirius didn't give me the look he usually did when I said that very thing. After all, I was nearly as stubborn as Susanna, she was just better at getting her way because she rolled right over people.

"Tell her that she owes me," Sirius said intensely. "She'll know what I'm talking about, and the fact that it's coming from you should make her start acting reasonable quickly."

Whatever it was she owed him for I knew I couldn't ask. Sirius wouldn't have told me anyway, but I nearly shuddered to think what it might be if he expected such results.


	15. Battle: Claude

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to one of my general readers, **_**ptl4ever419**_**. Also, this is Claude's POV. Enjoy!**

** -C**

Toward the end of November, I got the usual foreboding sense that the world was going absolutely mad.

That is to say, the Slytherin v. Gryffindor Quidditch match was approaching.

As a Ravenclaw, I wasn't really in the line of fire, although my sister always had very emphatic ideas of how the match needed to turn out to best benefit her Quidditch team, and it usually involved James Potter being injured quite badly, which never seemed to happen. Not that it was an impossibility, with the way the Slytherins were always going after him.

For my part, Iris and I both had so many friends in Gryffindor that the very idea of the Slytherins injuring James Potter and causing a Gryffindor loss made me more than a bit uncomfortable.

After all, Leah was on the team. I didn't want Leah to lose. Or Mattia.

Although I still had a bone to pick with Mattia.

The school had yet to figure out who had done the prank on the Slytherins, but due to the obviously illegal nature of the prank, they were still looking in spite of the month lapsed.

I tried not to think about it, tried to believe in the fact that Mattia and Alyson had never been caught, but there was no way that _nobody_ could find out, if looking hard enough, and apparently breaking the law was what it took to make them really look, really try to find the culprit of our actions.

After all, I had a future to think of. I had plans, goals, dreams. I didn't want them all ruined because I'd let Susanna talk me into revenge for her sister.

I was innocent!

All right, so I wasn't fully innocent, but I certainly hadn't planned the whole thing. The work I'd done... It was minimal enough that I might even be able to claim plausible deniability.

But then, why wouldn't I have come forward?

Saving my own skin?

Oh, I had little time to properly think over my defense as I was just so regularly trying to dodge the chaos that was Gryffindor-Slytherin pre-match dueling. Subtlety was not a Gryffindor strong suit and caring not a Slytherin one, which led to some absolutely crazy after effects.

"Half the Slytherin House is in the hospital wing and not a single one is Potter's fault and not a single one a Quidditch player!" Helena had told me, aggravated.

Sometimes, I was derided for not having Helena's passion. It seemed to me that she was less passionate in circumstances as these and more manic.

Passion could, I thought, be a quiet thing. It certainly needn't involve desire to hospitalize people, even worse, specific people.

But Helena would get so caught up in the Quidditch season that I doubt she ever stopped to think about the implications of the words she said related to the game she loved.

By the time the twentieth person had been sent to the hospital wing that year, I had rather lost my taste for the whole rivalry, not related to Quidditch alone, but also for my part in it. All right, so technically, I hadn't gotten involved in the rivalry per se, but really all of the rubbish with Leah and the Slytherins would probably never have happened without the intensity of the rivalry in our time, enhanced with the Marauders v. Death-Eather-wannabes.

No, I appreciated the Marauders and what they wanted to do for the school. I didn't appreciate the mess they left in their wake, the one I was always somehow finding myself encased in.

But I would never say any of that out loud, of course. Between Iris and Mattia, there wasn't a good time or place to say anything to anyone about how I felt about the Marauders without offending someone who was friends with them or potentially having it come back to bite me in the future.

With a slow, careful gait I walked through the halls, making sure around every corner that there was no one ready and waiting to hex anyone with an association with either Gryffindor or Slytherin. First years were especially bad about things because they couldn't often tell from a distance and didn't wait to see if they didn't recognize the person. Thankfully their spells were usually more annoying than dangerous or even lasting, but there was always a first year or two who knew far too much magic for their own good. Sometimes it was enough to be frightening, like with Severus Snape and Sirius Black in my own year. The duels they got into even then...

Susanna and Leah had come in knowing magic too, of course, being precocious as they were, but Susanna had been nearly up to speed with Leah, having a distinct passion for already knowing all the coursework.

Naturally, being the show-off she was, she got herself into a spot or two as a first year, but she was lucky enough to have an older sister and the Marauders to get her out of things. Honestly, I was glad of that, because sometimes her stunts would get Iris pulled in, and although we hadn't been dating that early, obviously, I was retrospectively grateful that the small army of Marauders plus Leah Papp were able to keep Iris from getting into too much trouble.

Speaking of Iris, I was actually on my way to meet her in the common room so that we could find somewhere to just curl up and spend a bit of time together. Things had been so crazy lately that we hadn't really had very much proper time together. Betsy and Sirius seemed to be on constant tenterhooks with one thing or another, and Susanna had done something stupid, and if Brigitta didn't have some sort of personal crisis within the week the sky would probably fall or something and that would count as her issue for my girlfriend to have to solve.

Before I reached the common room, though, Mattia grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the classroom she had been waiting for me in.

"How did you know I was coming?" I asked.

I really shouldn't have bothered asking Mattia how she knew anything. I was never going to get a full answer to that question.

"That's not the point," she said. "Sit. We need to have a chat."

Sitting warily, I said, "Look, if this is about patrolling, I'm not taking your shift for you. I've got a date."

"It's not about that at all," Mattia laughed. "No, no, you can go and enjoy your date as soon as we've gotten a few things perfectly clear, understood?"

No, I didn't like where this might be going at all. My mind started racing to all the possible illegal, immoral, and rule-breaking things I might need to do on behalf of the group I'd somehow gotten involved with that was beginning to feel more and more like being a part of a crime syndicate.

How had this even happened? How did I get a way out?

"Now, it seems to me that you've been a bit... jumpy lately, about the incident that we carried off..."

"Yes, I know the incident you mean," I said quickly, hoping she would go about it quickly so I wouldn't have to be drawn into something else.

"I wanted to check and make sure that you're going to keep your mouth closed."

I blinked.

She thought I was going to tell?

Honestly?

Wasn't I complicit in the whole thing as well?

I supposed that Hogwarts did seem to offer a certain amount of immunity for those who were unaware of their actions or who come forward, if you talked to certain professors. Flitwick, for example.

Maybe she had a point, but I didn't think it was really in my nature to speak up when we did something...

Well, I don't really know. We'd never really done anything so... incredibly awful to fellow human beings before, and we certainly hadn't ever broken the law.

So the more I thought about it the more her questioning of my ability to remain quiet made some amount of sense, and I was glad that I stopped to think about it to make an outraged sort of comment that she would have surely shot down and made me feel a fool for saying.

Mattia wasn't quite as mean and cruel as perhaps such musings would make her come across to those unacquainted with her. In truth, she and Alyson were very normal, lovely, fun to be around girls. They just happened to somehow manage to keep track of things that weren't their business in order to enact what they thought ought to be enacted. Usually, it all turned out for the best and they were unsung heroes of sorts. I was really hoping that in the case of my involvement of things, that was how it would turn out.

"Don't forget what I know," she said calmly.

What she knew.

Oh, Mattia knew many, many things about many people, but I was far from exempt from this. She knew that I was more or less ambush-snogged by an older girl in fifth year that Iris still didn't know about and I regretted wholeheartedly.

But Mattia had been right there. I knew how she knew that. It was the other things she might know that worried me, made me nervous, because how on earth was she able to figure out those sorts of things?

Figure out she did, and so I sat in wait, wondering what she knew.

"Of course, there's the snogging," she said, bringing up the incident we both knew that she knew. "But I have so much more. I rather like you and Iris. I think you're good for each other. Don't make me ruin it."

Would she ruin it? Could she?

I really wasn't sure. I'd never seen Mattia or Alyson actually ruin a relationship before, but they'd certainly ruined friendships and changed dynamics between people. I wasn't sure that I would want to risk it, even if I wanted to risk my own immunity in the whole scenario.

"All right," I said. "I won't say anything. I wasn't going to anyway."

"I'm sure you understand that I can't afford to take chances," Mattia replied, clearly not moved by my assurances that I hadn't even thought of telling on them, myself… us. I wouldn't have called her hardened, exactly, but she certainly had a measure of practicality in the whole matter that made me wonder a bit whether Slytherin might not have been a better house for her. It certainly would have suited Alyson nicely. Then again, if they didn't look so different I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart, their personalities had so blended into each other through the years.

"Well, I'm not talking, anyway, so I suppose I'm free to go?" I asked, feeling a balance of nerves and exasperation. I just wanted to see Iris, was that so much to ask?

"Yeah, you can go," she said, smiling a bit at me. "But don't forget about what I said, Claude. I don't want to, but you can easily force my hand. Let's not make life difficult for either of us, shall we?"

I resisted the urge to glare at her as she walked out of the room, leaving me standing there by myself, trying desperately not to do or say something stupid. I needed to be rational. I needed to be calm.

I needed to go and meet Iris in the common room or I was in for it with her anyway, speaking or keeping my mouth shut tight.

So after taking a moment to compose myself I continued on my way toward the Ravenclaw common room, trying to think of an appropriate reason for being so terribly late for what felt like the hundredth time.

She met me before I'd either made to the door or come up with a good excuse, though, and she didn't appear upset with me at all, which was an incredible relief after my conversation with Mattia and all its tension.

"Oh, Claude! There you are! What's held you up?"  
Thinking as fast as I could, I made up a bogus story about Mattia wanting to discuss the possible changing of our routes for the prefect patrols, but thankfully she didn't listen closely enough to see through my terrible excuse for a lie. Instead, she took my hand excitedly.

"And you got it all sorted?" she asked.

"Yes," I said slowly.

"Excellent," she replied happily. "Well, then, let's go spend some time together."

It had been a surreal experience, having her lead me away to the Prefect's Bath, watching the flickering lights of Hogwarts glow off her hair as she dragged me along. I was dazed, yes, but also very excited. I couldn't recall how long it had been since we'd last had time alone together and I didn't want it to end at all.

"Iris," I said as she led me inside, but she just laughed and kept dragging me in.

There was always a certain amount of risk involved in fooling around in the Prefect's Bath, particularly in the middle of the day. The password, after all, was one of Hogwarts' worst kept secrets, meaning that at any time, anyone at all could walk in. The Marauders were particularly notorious for it.

Thankfully, we hadn't ourselves walked in on anyone, and I watched Iris as she marched up to the edge of the large, pool-like tub to turn on the water with a bemused smile.

I loved times like this.

As she adjusted the temperature and bubbles to her liking, I began to loosen my tie anticipatorily. She stood up, pulling off her robes that covered her uniform and tossing them aside just as I was tossing aside my own tie and my eyes raked her form anxiously.

Iris was not, as Betsy was, a thin, blonde, stereotypically desirable type of girl. Betsy even had a bit of character to her face that was not 'normal', but Iris…. Iris still managed to be the most attractive thing in the room as far as I was concerned. I wasn't sure if she was just my physical type or if I just loved her so much that everything about her became sexy to me, but I would take it.

By the time we'd stripped down completely I was already walking carefully but quickly over to the water, where she was dipping herself already into the warm bubbles, smiling up at me.

"It's warm," she said lamely as I climbed in with her, pulling her to me through the slight resistance of the water, brushing some of her dark hair out of her blue eyes with a soapy hand.

"You're beautiful," I said, feeling as lame as she'd sounded.

It earned me a kiss, though, and more come to that. I could hardly go around complaining about things that earned me kisses, cheesy and lame though they sounded.

When we were both exhausted by our exertions and the heat of the room around us, I pulled her over to the edge and leaned back, cuddling with her in the water.

"I've missed this," I admitted, kissing her forehead. "It's been too long."

Iris made a sound of agreement against my throat and sighed heavily, pulling herself away from me a little to look up at me and smile sleepily.

"I love you," she said. "We need to do this more often."

It was true, we did need to. I tried not to puff myself up too much with pride, knowing how ridiculous it would look to be so obviously proud of her loving me and wanting me when there was no one around to physically brag to. Still, even though I was no Sirius Black, my girlfriend seemed to desire me and seemed to be quite satisfied with me, and that was cause enough for copious amounts of pride, I thought.

Quiet pride, though, was best in most cases, so I just smiled, told her that I loved her too, and held her a bit tighter.

We sat in that bath until we'd turned into virtual prunes, cuddling and kissing languidly, not thinking about the mounds of homework we would both have to attend to when we returned to our common rooms, nor the illicit activities we may or may not have been involved with, nor the other things of the world that awaited us when we left that mas of water.

"It's going to be not fun when we get out of here," she finally mused.

"No," I agreed. "I've got a headache of an essay I've been putting off."

"Not that," she said with a solemn sigh, resting her head on my shoulder. "I meant when we leave Hogwarts. The war, you know."

Oh, yes.

The war.

Sometimes I would forget about it, think that the most pressing things in my life were the Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry that seemed to turn my world upside-down repeatedly. But usually something snapped me back to reality and reminded me that there really was a war going on out there, and I would probably not be afforded the luxury of sitting on the sidelines, watching.

"Yes, I know," I said softly. "It will be all right," I comforted her.

I knew that her brothers were already involved in the fighting, and while her sister was staying out of things, there was no guarantee of anything where Iris was concerned. Besides, Iris and her sister only got along sometimes, being so many years apart and so very different.

And me, what was I going to do?

"I hope so," she sighed, leaning back against me briefly, enjoying the little bit of time we could waste that day just a bit longer. "I certainly hope so."


	16. Forward and Back: Leah and Remus

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to **_**Missing Triforce (**_**Mattia**_**)**_**, who is getting this in honor of finishing her senior thesis (which also happens to be her first novel which is now in the polishing stages!). I hope she enjoys this chapter, as it brings to a head a couple of plots she's been aching for resolution of. It starts in Leah's POV Cheers!**

** -C**

I sat at the place on the sixth floor where we'd agreed to meet. It wasn't exactly a secret anymore that we were together, but still it was more comfortable meeting where there weren't eyes everywhere to judge us and gossip about us.

Constantin arrived moments later, frowning at nothing in particular, sitting down beside me.

It was, apparently, a brooding day.

I really wasn't in much of a mood for brooding days. After having to threaten my sister on behalf of Sirius with some information I didn't even know (always terrifying) just to get Remus to start behaving like a normal human being again (ironically), dealing with my brooding boyfriend was one of the last things I wanted to do.

"Well, good morning, sunshine," I said ironically. "What's got you all gloomy?"

He started as if he hadn't noticed I was there (maybe he hadn't), and he smiled tightly at me.

"Hello, you," he said, ignoring my question. "Feels like ages since I last had you to myself."

It hadn't really been that long, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

There were only ever two reasons for Constantin to be that sweet. One of them was us being apart for a break like Christmas or summer or Easter. The other was because something was wrong and he didn't want to talk with me about it.

Since it was obviously the latter, I wanted to know everything.

I knew from basically growing up with the Marauders that demanding some sort of answer right off would get me nowhere, so I started by appealing to his ego, making him think he'd won.

Ugh, those boys must have poisoned me if I was willing to play such games on my boyfriend. However, necessary was necessary.

I shifted slightly and began rubbing his shoulder slightly, smiling up at him.

"It has been too long, yeah," I said. "I've missed you."

He grinned.

"How much?"

Oh, this was just far too easy. Maybe Susanna was right. Maybe he wouldn't be able to beat Sirius at chess after all.

"So much," I said, and it was at least partially true. I refused to date people if I didn't miss them when they weren't around. Otherwise what was the point of being around them as much as possible? But the strange thing about Constantin was that I didn't miss him as much as I'd done at first, and I didn't automatically become more excited when I was with him than when I wasn't.

Still, what did I know about love? And not the fairytale sort of love, but the real thing. Perhaps this was what it was like.

"Well, then," he muttered, kissing me, but not really kissing me like he usually did.

No, something was certainly, definitely wrong, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

On the other hand, it didn't hurt to enjoy the kiss for a while, so I did just that, cheering him up a bit by letting him have control of the kiss, letting him put his tongue in my mouth like he so loved to do, although without his usual vigor.

In all fairness, I appreciated the lack of vigor, if not what it was symptomatic of.

When the kiss broke off, I snuggled close to him, breathing in his familiar, comforting scent. There was one thing I much preferred in Constantin to the Marauders: He smelled clean and fresh. Peter always smelled of sweets and sweat. Sirius had a spicy sort of smell that was probably his soap. James smelled of mown grass and dirt, even on days when he showered. Remus smelled like chocolate and books.

But Constantin, he just smelled clean, and I adored him for it. Sometimes so many smells at once was enough to give me a headache.

"What's bothering you?" I asked softly, not looking up at him. He probably had a look of consternation on his face, and if he did I didn't want to see it. I wanted to give him time to school his face and voice to being unperturbed by my question, even though we both knew it had to be a question of consequence.

Sure enough, after a few moments he said, "Why does there always have to be something wrong? Why can't you ever just enjoy the moment?"

I hardly thought that was fair, and I told him so.

"What, I'm not allowed to care about you?" I countered. "I'm not allowed to be concerned when you're clearly not yourself? Honestly, this is hardly ever a problem in Gryffindor Tower-"

That was a bit of a lie, of course. The Marauders often appreciated my concern even less than Constantin, probably thinking it was a bite out of their manliness or some such nonsense, but my fib had the desired effect.

"And by that I suppose you mean Black and Potter?" Constantin snarled, getting up and crossing the space to frown at me from across the way. "If they make you feel so appreciated why don't you just stay with them?"

The lashing stung a bit, but I'd asked for it, really. I knew he'd react in that general way, if not exactly how angry he would be.

"I'm not your enemy, you know," I said coldly. "And if this is how you're going to treat me when I'm just trying to be nice-"

"Leah, I'm sorry," Constantin sighed, running his fingers through his hair in a way very much like James as he sat back down beside me, his voice and face instantly more tender. "I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry."

But I knew exactly why he'd said it. I'd provoked him, of course, and even though I knew there was something very important he was keeping from me and that it was probably incredibly important that I coax it out of him, I suddenly felt incredibly ashamed of myself for jerkin him around in that way.

"No, you're right, I shouldn't pry," I said honestly. "I only meant to help. But Merlin knows everybody's got things they don't want to say."

"Like what?" Constantin said promptly. "What aren't you telling me?"

I blinked at him.

"That's not what I mean," I said slowly. "It was a commentary on human nature, not a precursor to some sort of confession."

"Sorry," he said again, breathing out through his teeth deliberately, trying to calm himself down. "Look, can we just start this whole thing over?" He smiled at me. "Good to see you, babe. How've you been?"

"Fine, what's eating at you?" I chirped, refusing to let it go.

If he wanted to start over, fine, but I was going to make sure I got the upper hand back right away. I wasn't going to let him wipe slates clean to take an advantage.

Constantin gave me a tight, begrudging smile and then he sighed, wrapped an arm around me and said, "You're right, babe. I need to at least tell you as much as I can, if we're being fair. I'll be all right, though. There's no need to worry. It's just stuff with my friends. I'd rather you didn't concern yourself about it."

I could almost hear Lily's voice echoing in my ears, the things we all knew about the Slytherins in our year, the ones Constantin was talking about.

The words I recalled were about Severus, of course, but they echoed in my ears just the same.

_I thought he was different, but I was just fooling myself, of course. Always be careful about who you choose as friends, my mother always said, because they're a reflection of yourself. Well, she was right, and I'm not going to stand for it any longer..._

Of course, this was Lily, so she certainly went on ranting and pacing far past that point, but most of it wasn't even relevant, and Constantin was kissing me again, so I pushed her shrill voice from my mind to examine at another time.

It was a little bit better than the last kiss, hardly any tongue, and mostly tender touches of the lips. Those were my favorite kisses, the ones that reminded me that there was more he wanted from me than some sort of carnal sating he could get anywhere. There was actually love between us, or at least, from what I could know of love, it certainly looked like what we had in moments like this.

As I wrapped my arms around his neck I tried not to think about the other moments, the moments not quite like this.

/-/

**A/N: Remus's POV**

She wasn't going to come.

I was sitting in an abandoned classroom Sirius had told me to wait in, winking in a way that meant he must have blackmailed Susanna into meeting me there.

But I just knew she wasn't going to come.

She wasn't quite late yet, but it was late for her. I glanced at my watch again anxiously, seeing some of the pale scars that covered my body lining my forearm.

Why would she come? How could she even want to look at me with what she knew? She would never speak to me again.

I nearly jumped out of my seat when the door opened. For a split second I thought it would be Sirius come to tell me she'd changed her mind, found some way to talk him out of the embarrassing ordeal where she would say out loud the words I'd heard her saying in my head since I poured my heart out to her.

She didn't want me.

But when I saw her flowing hair peak around the door, followed by her face, flushed with the exertion of the climbing stairs to get to the classroom they'd picked, I instantly found myself on my feet, heart racing, mind numb with shock and fear.

"Susanna," I managed to breathe. "I…. I mean, you…. You came."

"Of course I came," she said, flushing even brighter. "I told Sirius I'd be here, didn't I?"

She didn't mention the blackmail, and honestly, I didn't even know what he was holding over her head, but I wasn't about to ask.

She was there, right there, standing in front of me and maybe, crazy though the thought might be, I might get a second chance and trying to win her over.

Maybe.

We sat down at desks that were adjoining, closer to her than I thought she'd want to be, given the circumstances, but I was too selfish to move further away, even by an inch.

"I actually wanted to talk to you," she said softly, "but I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to face you after… after…."

I winced for the blow.

"After the right arse I made out of myself."

What?

I looked into her beautiful face searching for the joke, searching for the lie, but neither were present. She honestly looked more embarrassed than I felt, face bright pink and eyes downcast shyly like I'd never seen them.

This couldn't be happening. Was she really saying what I thought she was saying, or was this a trick of my mind hearing what it wanted to hear?

"I really want to explain, you see," she said softly. "When you… when you told me it was you, all the things you'd told me, that it was all about you, I…. I panicked a bit, to put it bluntly." She sighed. "I'm really not proud of my reaction, but it was a lot to take in, and I needed time to think about things and I didn't know what to say or do and I just…. It was wrong of me. Really, really wrong. I only hope you can forgive me."

"Of… of course I forgive you," I said quickly. "No, really I do. I… I was being insensitive. The whole thing was Sirius's idea, really, and-"

"I might have known," she snorted. "You were fine, Remus. So. I guess the next question is… where does this leave us?"

It was a very good question, one I really didn't know the answer to, so I was hoping she would give one instead, kicking my feet anxiously against the leg of the desk.

After a long moment I realized that she was not, in fact, going to be so obliging as to answer her own question, but was waiting very patiently for him to give any sort of answer. Finally, I sucked in a quick breath and said, boldly, terrified, "Want to go out sometime?"

If I thought my heart had been pounding before it was nothing to how it was threatening to pop right out of his chest in that moment, desperately waiting for her answer, any sort of answer from Susanna.

She looked up at me and I looked into her eyes and I froze.

She was going to say no.

What a fool I was to think that it would turn out differently! Oh, now she'd had her time, but we were too different, it wasn't going to work. This was worse than her running out and rejecting me out of shock because she'd actually taken the time to think about it and still come to that conclusion.

"I think a date might have to go on the backburner for a bit," she said with a small smile.

Smile? Was she actually turning me down with a smile?

"What?" I said, biting back the emotions swirling inside me all over again.

"Oh," she said, surprised, touching my arm softly. "Remus, I don't mean permanently. It's just… well, I'm about to get my Runes text up to publishing condition and it's a very busy time for me and I don't want to commit to something and then have to cancel it later if I know my schedule's going to be in flux."

"So… so you're not-?"

"I'm not rejecting you, no," she said with a laugh. "I'm mad about you."

Without even realizing I'd done it at first, I placed my hand over hers.

"Really?" I whispered. "You mean, even though-?"

"Remus, I know better than anyone what you're going through," she said, frowning a little. "I've seen it, Remus. I've seen transformations. Professor Dumbledore escorted me to St. Mungo's a week back so I could watch someone transform for the first time. The screams.…" She shuddered and I squeezed her hand, wishing that with that squeeze I could take away the memories, because I knew what she must have seen. I'd seen it in the mirror, I'd heard the screams and howls with my own acute wolf-ears.

"Anyway," she said softly, looking down at their hands and shifting her fingers so that they interlocked with his, "I think maybe we should make that date a celebration of publishing when it happens, okay?"

I agreed, wondering how I would get to see her, how we were to progress until that time. It could, realistically, be months until we went on that date. Not that I couldn't use a bit of time to adjust to the idea that she was - How did she put it? - mad about me.

"I guess you've probably got a lot of work to do," she finally sighed. "I know I have. All these essays, I don't know what I was thinking. They'll be the death of me. Anyway, I've got Zola on editing at the moment, but there's still so much to do. Maybe we could talk more about all this some other time? I'll probably be working by the fireplace in the back of the library tonight, if you'd like to join me."

Was that really an invitation to be near her?

"Sure," I said quickly, clutching her hand a little tighter, not wanting her to leave just yet, even though there was a promise of seeing her, being close to her, later on that night.

"Great," she sighed, smiling up at me. I almost protested when she stood up, moving us toward the door, but when I realized that she was walking both of us back toward our common rooms hand-in-hand I kept my mouth shut.

Well, Sirius was right, Susanna certainly knew what she wanted and wasn't going to take no for an answer. Not that I particularly minded. She could do whatever she wanted with me, as long as she was with me.

"So," she said as we neared Gryffindor Tower, "this is where I've got to leave you, I'm afraid. "Do you think it's possible that… that…"

"What?" I asked, but before I'd even finished the word she'd leaned forward, rolled up onto the balls of her feet, and pressed her smooth, warm, sweet lips to my cheek, just an inch above my chin.

She'd nearly lost her balance as she got down back onto her feet properly, but I felt like the world was spinning around me.

How long had I wished for that very thing, that very gesture she just gave?

She squeezed my hand once more, smiling at me and walking backwards away from me. "Fireplace. Library. Don't forget."

As if I could possibly forget.

I waited until she was well out of sight before touching the still-burning spot her lips had brushed on my cheek.

Well, it was inevitable at that point. I had to go right back up into Gryffindor Tower and say the very words I did not at all want to say to him, just for knowing what the look on his face would be.

_I'm sorry. You were right._

Oh, he was going to be insufferable.


End file.
